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FEH J 4 1887 



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"(fleams of (^race." 



EIGHT SERMONS 

BY 

Russell H> Con well, 

(Pastor of Grace Baptist Cliurcli, Philad'a, Pa.) 

To which is added the Chautauqua Report of 
his Celebrated Popular Lecture, 

''Acres of Diamonds " 



/ 



1887 




PUBLISHED BY THE 

Business Men's Association of Grace Baptist Church, 

For the benefit of the " Building Fund" for the New Church Structure, 
to be built at the Cor. Broad and Berks Sts., Phila., Pa. 
FOR SALE BY 

J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 




^^^^- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by 

THE BUSINESS MEN'S ASSOCIATION, 

Of Grace Baptist Church, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Press of C. M. DAVIES, 

119 N, SIXTH ST., PHILA. 



<0 



Introduction 



Mr. Conwell has often been urged to permit the pMbiication 
of his sermons in book fonn^ in order that the public^ which seeks 
admission to Grace Chzirch without success^ for lack of room, may 
at least obtain some of his serTnons to read. Of course there is so 
much in his 7nanner of delivery., tone of voice., and naturally ex- 
pressive gestures., which add interest to his sermons that a chief 
charin must be absent in the printed page. Then too., he speaks so 
rapidly at times that it is impossible for the reporter to take down 
verbati?n, the most i?npassioned clauses. 

Hitherto., Mr. Conwell would not consent to the p2iblication of 
his ser?nons., because of the difficulty of reporting them correctly., 
and because he never writes out either sermons or lectures; but for 
the sake of adding something to the fund for the construction of the 
proposed new church., at the co7-ner of Broad and Berks Streets., 
Philadelphia., which the congregatiofi purpose to build., he has co7i- 
sented that this volume shall go forth. The entire income fro7n 
these books., above the actual cost of paper., printing and binding 
will be scrupulotisly usedj^r that purpose. 

His celebrated lecture., ^''Ac7'es of Dia7nonds,^'' is also printed 
herein in a condensed form., as reported for the Chautauqua Herald., 
and will befa77iiliar to 77iany thousa7ids of people in every Northern 
State a7id i7i so7ne of the larger cities of E7igla7id. 

ROBERT HA YDOCK. 



Contents. 



PAGE. 



Heaven's Open Door 9 

He Goeth Before 17 

No -More Sea 29 

A Holy Day 39 

Where it Listeth 51 

At Athens Alone 59 

Acquaintance with God 69 

Acres of Diamonds 83 

Enoch Walked with God i«^ 



Heaven's Open Door. 



*' Behold a door was opened in heaven.'' — Rev, 4 : 1. 



In my childhood I once stood in the yard of a 
country farm-house in the evening, caring for my father's 
horses while he transacted some business matters in the 
dwelling. The night was chilly and dark, and threaten- 
ing clouds hid every star. Some evening gathering of 
unusual importance made that old homestead strangely 
full of animation. The curtains of the windows were 
closely drawn, but shadows of flying forms and happy 
faces flickered on the shades, while occasionally shouts 
•of laughter and strains of old songs could be heard. 

The evident cheer and joy within the house made 
me doubly lonely, and as it comes back to my mind now, 
I see the force of Moore's striking couplet : 

" Like lutes of angels touched so near 
Hell's confines the damned can hear." 

The hour I waited was one of the most wearisome 
and gloomy of my life. My situation was not made 



HEAVEN'S OPEN DOOR. 

more cheerful by a gruff and coarse man, who was 
waiting around the house like a ghost, and who at 
last with an oath asked me, from the dark woodshed, 
why I did not " take those horses out of people's way." 
I told him I had a father in the house, and I could not 
go until he came out. At last my childish fears and the 
bleak wind overcame me, and I cried aloud, and called, 
" Father ! father ! come, come, I am cold ! I am afraid 
out here!" 

Instantly the door opened. A glow ot warm light 
illuminated the whole yard, and my father stood in the 
door smiling at my timidity. Beyond him I could see 
the great fireplace piled high with blazing logs. All 
about the fire a score of youthful faces beamed in its 
bright rays. Confectionery and fruit stood on the table, 
and a chorus of sweet voices greeted the luscious feast. 
When my father had quieted my fears, he returned to the 
house for a few moments more. While I waited, I saw 
the door open frequently to let in other guests. Some- 
times a child shone in the doorway, sometimes an old 
man or a lady entered. Once a party of young people 
came and struggled playfully with each other to be each 
the first to enter. At last, on the suggestion of one of 
my schoolmates, who lived in the house, my father came 
and called me in. Oh that open door! that welcome! 
that fire ! the feast of good things ! the games ! the fun ! 
Will heaven itself blot out the sweet memory of that 
glad hour ? 

The other morning, when I was questioning the 
Word of God for a message to bring to you, my eyes 
fell on these words : " A door was opened in heaven." 
How vividly it brought back that night and its open 
door ! So I sat alone for about the only hour I have 



!• 



HEAVEN'S OPEN DOOR, 

*fiad to myself this week, and mused on my heavenly 
home and its open door. 

I thought of that time when the door of heaven ever 
stood open, and when God came forth to walk in the 
gardens with Adam and Eve ; then of the time when the 
cold blasts of sin caused its gate to close of itself, and of 
the hour when the door opened again, and God came 
forth in awful glory to find and punii:h his disobedient 
children, who hid themselves with shame from the bright 
rays of that door. 

Then, when Abraham and Lot began those prepara- 
tions for the land and for the chosen people, and when 
in love they called to God for company, how the door of 
Heaven opened, and angels, pure as light and radiant 
with Divine love, stepped out into the world's night to 
be the guests and protectors of man ! 

Again and again the door opened in the long cen- 
turies of Jewish captivity and the weary wilderness 
journey. 

But the world's coldest and darkest night was when 
Augustus Caesar ascended the throne of Rome. Reli- 
gion was everywhere the mask of hypocrisy, licentious- 
ness, or avarice. Crime was counted honorable, a noble 
man a curiosity, and a pure woman a fool. Love, 
friendship, patriotism, and philanthropy were cold. One 
deep, murky night settled over the world. Mankind 
shivered hopelessly. The blackness of immoral darkness 
hid their faces from each other. The Jews had a tradi- 
tion that in the great home they had a Father who would 
some time come forth. But the great and civilized world 
did not know whether there was any Father. The home 
of immortal souls presented to the world a dull, hard, 
blank wall, frowning in the gloom. 



II 



HEAVEN'S OPEN DOOR. 

But, lo ! a door, wide and high, opened startlingly 
before the faces of an astounded, godless multitude. In 
that doorway, Jesus Christ, the holy, the heroic, the 
beautiful, stood and smiled a welcome to the affrighted 
people. The sudden glory overwhelmed them all. Yet 
a few recognized the face of Jesus as that of their best 
friend, and, longing for the joys of an eternal life in His 
home, ran to meet Him with a kiss of love. But with 
the worldly masses the contrast was too great. Envy is 
the most devihsh of sins. He could teach as man could 
not. He could heal as no other physician could do. He 
could see into the future as other prophets could not. 
He could give of the inexhaustible riches of eternal life, 
but others could not. He was the Son of God, while 
they were sinful creatures of earthly mould. Their envy 
overcame their fear and their love of life. They fell on 
him, wounded Him, spit on Him, crucified Him, and 
drove Him back to His home. But He went back to 
stand by the door, and to open it whenever, from the 
darkness and chill of earth's existence. He should hear a 
cry of distress and supplication. 

When the noble Stephen so boldly and faithfully 
declared to the Jews their crimes and heresies, Jesus was 
close by the door of heaven listening; and when the 
martyr's cry for sympathy and strength came ringing 
through the towers of the city oi (joA^ Jesus opened a door 
in heaven and left it open, while He sat down on the right 
hand of God in state, to welcomeHis loved disciple. 

Grand old St. Paul was in prison after his scourg 
ings, or in the wastes of Macedonia, after weary travels, 
when, his courage failing, he called on God : " Behold a 
door was opened in heaven," and Paradise itself was 
shown to him through the glittering portals. 



12 



HEAVEN'S OPEN DOOR. 

Peter, like many a Christian since his day, prayed 
upon the house-top. Lo, a door opened in heaven, and 
a lesson of hope for the Gentiles was taught in panto- 
mime. Then John, dear aged John, his hair bleached 
with years and trials, stands among the jagged rocks ol 
Patmos. Alone, hungry, cold and weary, 

" Nothing left but heaven and prayer. 
Wondering if our names are there." 

But Christ looks through the window of heaven 
and searches for John, His old playmate, friend, and 
valiant disciple ; and seeing the good old man so lonely, 
so shut out of the joys and scenes of this world. He 
pulls down the bolts of heaven's door. See, it swings 
back, and John can look away through to the throne ! 
What is the world to John, now that heaven is open ! 
Oh for one glimpse of the land where there is no more 
sorrow nor crying ! Oh, could we, like John, look 
through the crystal door to the River of Life and to the 
throne of the living God ! 

Since that day Jesus has opened the door, and its 
dazzling reflections have bewildered and blinded the 
enemies of God as often as it has welcomed the sons of 
God. Men have tried to force that door, and still crowd 
about its lintels. Armies besiege it, stratagem lies in 
wait at its posts ; but neither power nor cunning ever 
opened that everlasting door. Many kings have sought 
the entrance in the world's night, with loads of gold and 
lofty titles, and men of science have tried their skill, and 
conjurers their charms. 

" But see, the crystal bar moves not. 
Holier far than e'en this drop the boon must be, 
That opens the gates of heaven to thee." 



13 



HE A YEN'S OPEN D O OR. 



One cry of distress is the only spell which influ- 
ences the keeper of that door of pearl, and that cry can 
be uttered only by the lips of a repentant lost sinner. 



Once I saw a soldier stricken down in the battle of 
Atlanta. Several bullets had pierced his body, and the 
surgeon said, as he turned the warrior's face to the sky, 
" No use, my lad ! no use ! I'm sorry, but I can't do 
more for you." I saw the quivering lip and the startled 
eye, and trembled as I thought of his soul. His eyelids 
drooped, his mouth moved in whispers, then the deathly 
pallor which follows the breaking of an artery, began to 
overspread his face. Then he whispered another prayer. 
He asked for water ; but while I put the canteen to his lips 
he refused it, and opening wide his deathly eyes he partly 
raised himself and died as he sharply called " Father! " 
The far-away look remained fixed in his eyes when his 
face was cold. His praying father died the year before. 
And oh ! I am sure that when that soldier looked away in 
prayer, the door of heaven opened, and he saw his 
father waiting in the light. It startled me in my god- 
less life. 

Several weeks ago I saw a fatherless child as it lay 
dying. There was weeping, weeping all about! Sweet 
little face ! Oh. it is painful tc» see so many sad scenes 
of death I But when the little eyes of that boy rolled 
back, and the hand closed tightly around its mother's 
fingei, that mother gave on^e piercing cry and fell down 
fainting beside the bed. But, when restoratives were 
applied, she arose with a calmness unknown to any but a 
Christian heart, and said : " I cannot complain, God took 
him." I believe the door of heaven opened then, and 



u 



HEAVEN'S OPEN DOOR. 

through the shining gateway that little fellow went to 
find and kiss his father. 

Within four weeks I have witnessed the tears of 
scores of sinful men and women, who, feeling the cold 
and darkness of their situation in the world, having no 
light here and no Father in heaven, have called out in 
despair, " It seems hopeless ! O God, forgive me ! " 
There is something unspeakably grand in pointing such 
souls heavenward, and waiting with them in prayer for 
the pearly door to open. Let lovers tell of love accepted, 
let soldiers speak of the hour of victory, and let long- 
imprisoned men tell of their release; but, ah! to the 
entranced soul of a Christian watching by a kneeling 
sinner waiting for Jesus, there is a far sublimer sense of 
holy awe ; and, when the door of heaven does open to 
the sinner, a more thrilling joy gleams into the Christian's 
soul, and one which even heated tears cannot express. 

O Christian, would you taste of bliss unspeakable, 
and find heaven here below? Plead with some loved 
one to stand beside you, or kneel with you, and urge him 
to call for Jesus with repentant heart. Then shall you 
catch the shadows of loved forms as they pass and repass 
the windows of heaven, and your waiting shall be 
rewarded with the sight of the open door, and the long- 
unseen faces radiant within, — a joy unspeakable and full 
of glory. 



>S 



He Goeth Before You. 



"Behold, he goeth before you into Galilee.'' — Matt. 28 : 7. 



In Jerusalem, in 1868, a wise old monk told me a 
most interesting tradition, — a combination, no doubt, of 
fact and fancy, like many others which he related while 
showing us over those sacred fields. But this one was 
so new to me, and so permeated with the clearest of 
gospel truth, that I tell it to you this evening as near as 
I can as it was told to me. 

When it was rumored through Jerusalem and the 
coasts thereof, that the Nazarene Prophet had risen 
from the dead, people everywhere feared to meet His 
ghost. They avoided every lonely spot by day, and 
double-locked their doors at night, for fear that they 
should see Jesus. Only those who loved Him in the 
flesh dared or wished to see Him in the spirit. But 
Jesus, after telling his disciples to meet Him in their old 
home in Galilee, left behind Him the scenes of His sor- 
row and sacrifice, and turned His glorified face toward 
Galilee. He glided over the path with angelic lightness, 
and with a strange halo about Him, passed softly out of 



17 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU. 

the city gate, and down into the valley, following studi- 
ously the path which He knew His disciples would take 
on the following day. 

In the valley where the path turned toward Em- 
maus. He saw a large field of grain waving and gleam- 
ing in the afternoon sun. It was still green, but the 
heavy heads bowed gracefully to Jesus as he looked 
benignantly upon it. He suddenly stopped His walk, 
looked up to heaven a moment in prayer, then stretched 
out His hands toward the field of grain, and said : 

" Ripen, ripen, O ye corn blades. Let every grain 
be dry and hard when yonder sun shall set." 

On He glided, flitting sweetly through the fields and 
woodlands. On the hillside, near to Emmaus, He saw a 
rich merchant sleeping by the side of a refreshing foun- 
tain. Bags of gold lay under the merchant's head. 
Weary with a long journey, the traveler's sleep was deep. 
Jesus paused a moment by the chattering streamlet, and 
then dexterously untied the bags of gold, and let the 
shining coin run forth into the grass and dry leaves 
which formed the merchant's bed. 

When He reached the plateau on the highlands 
where Emmaus village stood. He passed the door of a 
workingman's low cottage. He heard the voice of 
prayer. His tender heart was moved. He listened at 
the door. Then in invisible form He entered through 
the closed door. There at his bedside in the settling 
shadows of evening the poor man prayed for work. 
" O dear Lord, send me honest labor by which I may 
support myself! " Jesus heard the prayer, and turned 
away ; but the praying one felt in his heart that strange 
-sense of spiritual presence which told him unmistakably 
that his prayer would be answered. He arose from his 



i8 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU. 

knees, and rolled himself in his coarse blanket, and, sup- 
perless and alone, slept a sweet sleep of peace. Jesus, 
of passing out the cottage, saw near the door a fresh 
and vigorous apricot tree. He seized it with a powerful 
grasp, and, twisting its top about, crushed it to the ground, 
leaving it bowed and broken. 

On He hastens as the night deepens, leaving a curi- 
ous glow on field, valley, and hill as He passed. Near 
Shechem He hears again the voice of prayer. This 
time it comes from a widow's home. Into it he unhesi- 
tatingly enters. There by the side of her boy's little bed 
the widowed mother kneels and prays. The child's face 
is wan and wrinkled with the tortures of a deadly disease. 
His eyes are rolling back in his head, and he is passing 
from consciousness of this world to that of the other. 
** O dear Lord," prayed the mother, " spare to me my 
only child." Oh ! send Jesus of Nazareth to me as He 
came to my neighbor at Nain ! Oh ! send me some help ! 
If Thou wilt hear my prayer, and save my child, all I have 
shall be thine. Thy people shall then be my people, 
and Thy will shall ever be mine ! " Jesus was there by 
her side. She could not see Him. She did not know 
that He held His hands over her in benediction. She did 
not see Him as He bowed his sweet face and kissed the 
dying child. But she did see, when she arose, an unac- 
customed smile on her boy's face, and she did feel an 
inward sense of restfulness she could not account for. 
" Mother, " said the boy, '* please give me some water. I 
dreamed that God kissed me." " I have prayed that 
Jesus, God's prophet, might come to heal you, my dear. 
Perhaps he will come soon," said the mother. 

On went Jesus' hastening feet down into the valley 
toward Shechem. Again a voice arrests His attention. 



19 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU. 

It is the voice of hunger. A poor woman Hes in her 
hut near the path, moaning for bread. Jesus hears the 
sad groan, and touching with His staff a huge boulder 
above that path which passed her humble home, th-e 
great stone rolled thundering down and blocked all on- 
ward passage, directly in front of the pauper's hut. 

He is nearing Nain at the midnight hour, when the 
touching bleating of a stray, shivering lamb attracts 
Jesus' attention. It is afar up among the rocks, and 
evidently imprisoned in some dangerous cleft. He 
pauses. He turns aside. Up the cliffs He clambers. 
Peering downward from a lofty perch into a dungeon-like 
cave below. He sees the shaking lamb, left all alone to 
die. Tears glisten in His angelic eye. He imitates the 
sound of its mother's bleat. He utters the tender cry o^ 
the shepherd. " You shall be saved ! You shall be 
saved ! Only wait till the morrow, dear little lamb ! " 
From a rift of the rock near the spot, a large azalea 
tree was budding for the spring. Jesus tenderly shook 
it, and into full blossom it sprang in a moment. y 

Forward again He speeds, until in his circuitous 
course He drew near to Cana. He determines to look 
in upon the home of the pair whose marriage feast He 
attended three years before, and where He turned the 
water into wine. It is late. But a dim light is burning 
still. Some one may be sick. 

But no. As He glides silently and unobserved into 
their apartments, there sit the weeping husband and wife. 
By them, in dear little cradles, two beautiful children 
softly sleep. But the parents sit and whisper and weep. 
" Only one more sheep left ! only one more ! O Benjamin, 
what will we do to keep from starving when that is gone?" 
" I cannot tell, Salome, but I do wish we could trust in the 



20 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU. 

Lord. David said, ' Trust in the Lord, and do good, 
and verily thou shalt be fed.' Let us try to trust Him. 
In some way He will feed us and our little ones." 
Together they knelt to pray. But Jesus, passing quickly 
out into the night, lifted His staff as He passed an upturned 
boiling-pot by the threshold, and thrust it through the 
bottom of the pot. Then quickly withdrawing it. He 
passed on to Nazareth. He went to his dear old home 
on the hillside, and, walking about the silent and deserted 
homestead, He wrenched a board from the grain-box 
and let a flood of grain run on the ground. 

Over hill and across valley He went, until, at the 
dangerous entrance of the Arbela Valley, He took a 
young tree and planted it securely in the middle of the 
path, and then turning squarely up the hillside He 
descended by another ravine to the shore of the beautiful 
blue sea of Galilee. The morning was approaching, and, 
away out on the tossing waves below Bethsaida, He saw 
an overturned boat. Out upon the unyielding waves He 
walked, and drew the boat to the shore, anchoring it 
securely in the sand. Then He wandered along the 
shore, where He found four abandoned oars. He brought 
them, and threw them about upon the shore as if they had 
been washed in by the tide. Then, when sunrise came. 
He passed across to the mountains, where He used to go 
to pray. 

Early on the following morning, all was bustle and 
hurry at the home of John, in Jerusalem, where the dis- 
ciples were preparing for their journey homeward to 
Galilee. With their heavy sticks, and bundles of various 
sorts, the party started forth from the western gate of 
the city. Peter bore the heavy sack of flour from which 
the disciples purposed to make their meals. But he 



^i 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU. 

murmured not, for others had an equal load of some 
other necessary article. Down in the plain, they passed 
a wide field of grain, yellow and ripe. The owner of 
the field, seeing a company of hardy men passing his 
farm, hastened out, and called after them, saying: 
** Travelers ! travelers ! Do any of you desire employ- 
ment ? My field has suddenly ripened, and it must be 
gathered at once. Come and help me. I will pay large 
wages. Come." But the disciples kept on, with the 
answer, "We have other work to do." 

On they went, until they came to the hillside, where 
the path led upward to Emmaus. There, weary with 
their burdens, they threw themselves down in the shadow 
of a rock, where a fountain burst forth into a rippling, 
singing stream. Thick grass and dried leaves invited 
them to lie down upon the sward. While resting their 
limbs and quenching their thirst, John detected some 
shining article among the leaves. On close inspection, 
he found, to his surprise, that it was a gold coin. The 
eager disciples then searched the leaves, and found many 
more. "Now," said impulsive Peter, "we can buy our 
food. I can now leave this heavy bag behind ! " " No, 
no," said John; "followers of Christ must not waste the 
food He gives us. Let us carry the flour on until we 
find some one in need of it." 

Thus agreed, they lift their bundles, and travel on. 
Soon after they passed a cottage where the owner was 
carefully bracing and staying a broken apricot tree ; and 
he called to the travelers to lend him a hand. 

*' Hard, hard fate this, neighbors," said the cottager. 
** This tree has been especially dear to me, and would 
have borne full this season. I needed this tree, especially 
now that I have no work and am so poor. It seems sc 



ec 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU. 

strange, too, as only last night I prayed the Lord to help 
me to some work, and I felt my prayer was answered. 
But, when I get up in the morning, I found, instead of 
good, this broken tree. Oh ! the Lord deals hard 
with me." 

" No, no," said Bartholomew, as he helped stay the 
tree. " If this had not been broken, we should not have 
stopped, and now out of this evil will come good ; for 
down on the plain this side of Jerusalem there is a large, 
ripe grain-field, and that farmer wishes very, very much 
for workmen such as you. He will pay you high wages ; 
go to him at once. It may be God's hand was in this 
matter in some way." 

Onward through Emmaus, and away towards 
Shechem they travel on, until, overcome by the heat of 
the sun they seek some shade, and some cistern of water. 
They seemed to be in a barren waste ; no shade and no 
water. They sink down on the parching ground and 
cover their heads with their cloaks, suffering with thirst." 

" Strangers, do you want water and rest ?" asked a 
woman's voice near them. They started in astonishment. 
" If you need either, my home is open to you. Is the 
prophet Jesus one of your company ? " eagerly asked 
the woman. They told her Jesus was dead, but risen 
again ; that he was not in their company ; and then they 
eagerly followed her around the hill to her comfortable 
home. They found a sick child there, over which they 
prayed, and it was healed. " Oh ! " said the widow, ** I 
am glad I sought Jesus, for in my search I found you. 
Perhaps it is just as well. God knows." 

Soon, refreshed and happy, the Christian company 
bid their kind hostess adieu, and cheerfully hasten on. 
Suddenly their way is blocked by a huge boulder that 



»3 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU, 

liad fallen into the narrow path. There seemed no way 
of getting around it, and they were uncertain whether 
the safest and nearest way to reach the path again would 
be around the hill to the right, or across a ravine to the 
left. "Friends, wait here a moment," said James, "while 
I go up to this hut and inquire." 

When James reached the hut, he found an poor 
emaciated woman, who most piteously begged for food. 
" Oh ! " said she, " dear stranger, I have prayed the Lord 
for food, and he has sent me nothing. Now, will not you 
do something for me?" James called to Peter hastily, 
saying, " Here ! Here, now, is a place for our bag of flour. 
It will not be wasted here." The rejoicing woman, for- 
getting God and thanking man, pointed out to them the 
nearest way, and on they passed into Shechem. 

Stopping for the night at a wayside inn, now made 
comfortable by the delegated influence of gold coin, they 
started early the next day, taking the road toward Nain. 

" Ho ! ho ! friends. Look ! look ! See that great 
azalea tree," startlingly shouted Andrew. " What beauty ! 
It is long ahead of the season." All the disciples 
stopped in their climbing to look at a gorgeous azalea 
tree that bloomed so like the burning bush in a rocky 
cleft above them. Nathanael desired to get a branch of the 
first flowers of the mountain springtime. After some 
discussion the company decided to sit down and wait for 
Nathanael to secure the flowers. When he reached the 
brilliant tree, a tender, patient bleat of a stray lamb 
could be distinctly heard. Nathanael's heart was moved 
with pity. He at once searched for the lamb. It had fallen 
into a deep cave, and was evidently abandoned by the 
shepherds. Nathanael called to Peter, and together they 
lifted the trembhng, grateful little creature out of its prison- 



34 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU. 

house. Forgetting the azalea, altogether, they carried the 
lamb in triumph to their companions. Down in the next 
valley they found the flock and the owner. Happily 
restoring the stray one to its own, they went on discuss- 
ing why there should be need that such innocent crea- 
tures should be offered up for the sins of others. What 
-does sacrifice for sin mean ? 

Soon they draw near to Cana. The highway took 
them over the high hill above the town. As they came 
to the crown of the hill, a column of black smoke and 
bitter cries came from a cottage yard near the road. 
Fearing some person was in distress, Peter, John, 
Andrew and James leaped over the hedge, only to find 
a wailing couple, weeping and crying because, in trying 
to extract the tallow from a carcass of mutton, they had 
used a broken pot. The fat ran through a hole in the 
bottom of the pot upon the fire, and, blazing up, consumed 
the whole within the great pot, as well as that which ran out. 
They seemed very wretched. But the travelers turned 
to pass on before they recognized the place. " James ! 
James!" shouted Peter; ''these are the persons we saw 
three years ago with Jesus at the marriage where He 
turned water into wine." 

At once a new interest was awakened. Old friend- 
ships were renewed. When it was found that the young 
married pair were very poor, and that they lost their all 
in that disaster, because of the broken pot, and also that 
they had two beautiful children to feed, impetuous Peter 
at once offered to take the young man into the fishing 
business, which he still owned at Capernaum. Both 
parties, happy in future prospects, parted with many grate- 
ful embraces. 

As they drew near to Nazareth, in that somewhat 



25 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU. 

circuitous journey, they said, " Let us visit the Lords 
old home. It will be pleasant to tell His mother about 
it when we go back to Jerusalem." So they took the 
path above the village of Nazareth, and came by a nearer 
route to the old homestead. But when they came in 
sight of it, they saw crowds of people all about the old 
home, while the air above the house was dark with doves. 
Rushing forward to find the cause for the multitude, they 
were told that for some reason the doves had gathered 
by the thousands about Christ's old home, and that they 
had mysteriously opened for themselves a passage into 
the granary. " Let's build a synagogue ! Let us build 
a synagogue here ! " shouted the superstitious multitude. 
" The doves are sent of God ! Let us begin to-day and 
build a synagogue." 

But the disciples had set their faces toward the Sea 
of Galilee, and, leaving behind the founders of the syna- 
gogue, which afterwards became the great asylum of the 
Crusaders, the disciples started toward the Arbela Valley. 

Before they came in sight of the sea, a strong bush 
was seen growing directly in the centre of the path. It 
was a strange thing and caused much speculation. James 
said it must have been set there to warn travelers of 
danger along the cliff path below. Peter said he was going 
on down that path whether James did or not. Matthew 
said that, so long as there was doubt about it, they had all 
better take a safe path and go over the heights. " Who 
knows," said Andrew, " but some one who knew we were 
coming this way put this bush here to save us from death? 
I think it is one of God's warnings, and I shall go the 
other way." At last all turned aside and crossed over in 
a plain path to look upon the Sea of Galilee, just as the 
gorgeous sunset hues of the skies were reflected with. 



2$ 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU. 

beautiful distinctness by the glassy blue and silent lake. 
Home ! home ! What a home Galilee must have been 
to its natives when Jesus was there too! 

As the skies grew dull and shadows fell on Caper- 
naum, Bethsaida and the sea, the weary disciples walked 
along the shore somewhat undecided where they should 
meet Jesus, and thinking about some lodging for the night 
outside the town, for Jesus had told them not to enter 
into the cities. As they wander thus, somewhat aimlessly, 
they come to a large boat drawn upon the shore, and 
about it lay four unbroken oars. " Ha, ha! " said Peter 
at once ; " let us go a-fishing I Come, friends, we can take 
one of these nets out here drying, and here is a boat all 
ready that is evidently abandoned. Come ! come, let us 
go a-fishing ! " Some fall in with the idea, and some do 
not; but at last, at the personal solicitation of the old 
fishermen who would enjoy it so much, they all get in 
and shove off from shore. 

But the fish seem to be gone. Again and again 
they draw the net. Not a fish. Again and again they try 
the old well-known resorts of fish. They failed to find 
any. All night they toiled and toiled, and when day 
dawned, ashamed and weary, they turned their boat 
toward the shore. When they began to row slowly for 
fear of shoal places near the shore, they saw a man on 
the shore cooking fish. Soon after they first saw him, he 
called out, " Have you any fish ? " '■' Not one ! " shouted 
Andrew. " Put out your net where you are on the right 
side. Plenty of fish there," said the stranger. 

" Let us try once more," said the disciples, encour- 
aged by the fact that the stranger evidently had caught 
near by the fish He was cooking. The great net sank, the 
boat swung around, and they began to draw. But the 



27 



HE GOETH BEFORE YOU. 

net was full of great fish. " Miraculous ! miraculous! 
See the net breaks ! Miraculous ! " John kept his eyes 
on the stranger, and started up quickly when he heard his 
companions say, " Miraculous ! " and, puUing excited 
Peter close to him, whispered, with sharp emphasis, " It 
is the Lord ! " 

Quickly forgetting net, fish, boat and comrades, the 
fiery Peter leaped into the shallow water and rushed 
splashing to the shore. But Jesus bids him return and 
bring in the fish before he comes to worship and to eat 
with Him. Oh, that simple breakfast on the shore ! With 
what wonder, as they sit and eat with Jesus, to hear Him 
ask about their journey. What surprise to hear that He 
had been along the same path before them ! What joy 
to feel that all the work He had prepared for them all the 
way from the ripe field to Nazareth they had done ! What 
joy to see how Christ provided them gold for necessities, 
water in famishing, and warnings at the robber valley of 
Arbela ! 

What a satisfaction it is to us to know that Jesus 
prepares our path, and always goes before us, and that on 
the beautiful shore of the crystal sea He will welcome us 
to sup with Him and see Him as He is. 



28 



No More Sea. 



" And there was no more sea.'' — Rev. 21 : i. 



In the year 1869 we went up the shore of Asia 
Minor, and visited the various islands along the coast 
from Antioch to Smyrna, and among other places we 
visited the island on which these words are said to have 
been written, " And there was no more sea." 

In the year 96, when the power of Rome had begun 
to decline, and when Christianity had gotten a strong 
hold upon the Roman Empire in various quarters, an 
old man whose hair was white and long, and whose 
beard was also white and thin, dressed in the clothing of 
the Asiatics of that period, stood in the mouth of a small 
rocky cave on that barren island of Patmos. A little 
cave but a few feet square was his home. 

Besides this old man on this dreary rocky island, where 
from his cave not a green thing could be seen, there 
were no other inhabitants. The only other persons said 
to have been on the island at that time, were the soldiers, 
who were sent there from Rome as guards. And this 
gray-haired old man, standing in the mouth of his cave, 
could look down upon the encircling harbor, and then 
out upon the sea to the east, toward which the land fell 
off in great rocky ridges. And as he came out of his 



29 



NO MORE SEA. 

cave he could go from shelf to shelf of these crags 
upward, until he reached an eminence, rocky and bare, 
without a tree, and without a sign of vegetation. There 
he stood so high that he could look over all the other 
hills of the island. 

I can see him, in imagination, as he stands in the 
mouth of that cave. He has partaken of his simple 
meal of dry bread and water. I can see him now ! He 
comes out of this cave and goes up, weakly and totter- 
ing, all alone, thinly clothed, with his bare head shining 
in the sun, to look away to the southward. 

John looks away to the southward f Ah ! I ques- 
tioned, when I stood in that same spot, what did the 
apostle John think as he was looking to the south ? 
What were this old man's thoughts, whose sands of life 
were so fast running out ? 

He must have thought of Alexandria lying low 
beyond the blue waves. They say he had visited Alex- 
andria, as a lover of letters and as an admirer of ancient 
books and lore ; and so looking to the south, he must 
have thought, " There lies the centre of all the world's 
learning, with its wonderful collection of ancient books, 
its teachers of Christianity, its productions of the world's 
greatest minds, — Alexandria." He thought of the pleas- 
ure it would be to him if he could walk among its 
libraries again and look into its books ; for he had grown 
old, and the older a man grows the more he wants knowl- 
edge, and the sweeter is the company of his books. I doubt 
not that John wished to go to Alexandria. But between 
him and this store of valuable knowledge was the sea. 
Those billows of the sea! His eyes strained themselves 
to look away to the southward, over this great sea which 
lay, like a savage sleeping lion, between him and his 



Z"^ 



NO MORE SEA. 

books. All alone, with nothing to amuse himself; all 
alone, on the desert island, desiring a book oh, so much ! 
He turned his thoughts to the sea standing between him 
and the learning of Alexandria. Looking down upon 
the shore beneath him, how smooth it appeared. It 
looked as if he could navigate it in a little boat ; the 
water appeared so clear and tranquil that it seemed to 
say to him, " Come, old man, with thy longings ; come, 
launch the little craft, and you shall see Alexandria! 
You shall be free! Launch this little boat and sail away 
upon this glorious sea." 

But John knew that it was a fit emblem of hidden 
treachery ; he knew that same water which seemed to 
woo him to its bosom, which said, ** It is so safe " — he 
knew that in an hour it might be so enraged that it 
would dash him to pieces. He knew it was a treacher- 
ous sea. And when John wrote the words of my text, 
wherever he may have written them, he had in his mind 
that treacherous sea. " The time will come," he said, 
'" when treachery shall be done away with, and there 
shall be nothing but faith, nothing but truth, nothing 
but purity, nothing but righteousness. No such unstable, 
faithless existence as an earthly sea. There shall be 
no more sea ! " 

John looked to the west. Away beyond the unstable 
water was mighty Rome. He thought of the treachery 
of the Emperor, the blood-thirsty, cruel Domitian. He 
pictured Domitian feasting in his palace, enjoying him- 
self, feasting among the murmurs and hatred of those 
around him. And John thought, " How like the sea is 
Domitian ; he began his life pretending to be holy and 
just, quiet as the sea. Until he had possession of the 
Roman Empire, all was quiet and peaceful in his char- 



NO MORE SEA. 

acter. Then how Hke the sea he suddenly wrought him- 
self into a rage, and how many thousand wrecks of 
humanity had Domitian cast upon the shore ! " John^ 
thou art low, and thou art old, and thou art a prisoner,, 
and thou art on a rugged barren island, hungry and 
scarce clothed ; but I had rather be thee than Domitian, 
for on that day when John was looking to the southward 
over the sea, the same sea that washed the gardens of the 
Emperor of Rome, where Domitian lived with his wife,. 
she, in her jealousy, was plotting and counseling how 
to poison her husband. An assassin was already em- 
ployed to thrust his dagger into the heart of the Emperor, 
and the Roman ruler was guarded ceaselessly by two 
strong men, knowing that his own wife was in league 
with deadly enemies. He knew that he was hated upon 
every side, because he had persecuted the Christians,, 
because he was vile and sinful. And tradition says, and 
history denies it not, that on that very same night the 
cup was given to him, and he died in terrible misery in 
his palace. I had rather be John, the old decrepit man,, 
on the ledges of Patmos, than Domitian, the great 
Emperor of Rome, in the day of his greatest prosperity. 

Perhaps John had looked across the same sea to 
the westward before, and it was when Peter and Paul sent 
up their pitiful cry, " Oh ! send us help to Rome." John 
had loved Paul and Peter. He seems to have loved 
Peter next to the Lord Jesus himself Do you think he 
did not long to go to Rome ? How often his afflicted 
brethren in the Christian Church of Italy called for him. 
But between him and Rome was this mighty sea. 

The next day, possibly, John goes up again to the 
same eminence ; and now he looks to the northward. 
But now he sees the water yesterday so smooth, all white 



32 



NO MORE SEA. 

with seething foam, and the angry waves rushing into the 
caverns and crevasses along the shore. He sees that they 
are white with fury, and all along the jagged rocks the 
fierce sea beats and thunders. The waves seem to say 
to John " Thy billows have gone over me. " They seem 
to come with such might ! They seem to come irresisti- 
bly and persistently against the crumbling shore ! John 
likens them to the wrath of God against sin. And he 
says the time shall come when there shall be no more 
wrath of the loving God. He sees these pitiless waves 
roll in, and he finds along the shore the broken bodies 
of animals that were caught by the pitiless sea and 
crushed on the barbed rocks. 

God's wrath is strangely symbolized by the sea. 
But when sin is gone, only love will remain. What won- 
der that John says, " There shall be no more sea ! " 

It may be that John, as a student of nature, went 
down to the shore that day, and he could see the hidden 
monsters of the deep, such monsters, possibly, as are now 
extinct. 

When God created the lower forms of animal life, 
he seems to have begun on the lowest first, then upward 
through the higher organizations to men, and then to 
angels. But John knew that the lowest forms would 
die, and only the highest and most heavenly survive. 
The lower forms of the sea must pass away forever. 

John, perhaps, went up the third day. And as 
he went up, he probably looked away to the east. I 
think he looked oftener to the east than in any other 
direction, because from the east came the sun of the 
morning, and in the east was the morning of his life. 
John looks away toward the east. He doesn't look 
toward the north or the west or the south to-day, but 



33 



NO MORE SEA. 

toward the eastj for his dear old home hes in that 
direction. 

When travehng in the Himalayas, I clambered up 
some of the highest mountains, which way did I look ? 
The very first inclination was toward my home. Yes, 
as the Jews turn toward Jerusalem, so every lover of his 
own home turns his face instinctively in that direction. 
And so John, standing over the sea, looks eastward. 
There was his old home. O my friends, what a home 
was his ! No sweeter home did you or I ever know. 
No boy ever had kinder parents than he. There, on 
the embowered shore of the Jordan, he had played in 
the orchard of his father, who was the owner of the land 
and of the ships on the sea. There he had lived amidst 
those luxuries of vegetation ; there, where he could 
ever look down upon the beautiful blue sea of Galilee, 
and away toward Jerusalem. 

From that place, John went forth to his work in the 
world, and do you suppose that he ever forgot that home ? 
Don't you suppose that he remembered it all, down to 
the very door-step ? Don't you suppose he remembered 
the boats in which he sailed, and where he went fishmg, 
and the nets in which he caught the fish? Don't you 
suppose that his childhood all came back to him ? He 
sees them again ! The hunting-camp away in the north, 
where he played by that fountain into which the fish were 
supposed to come from Egypt. The orchards, the fields, 
the flocks, the caravans ! Dear sisters and brother ! Oh, to 
look once more on the dear old scenes ! But between him 
and the home he loved was this terrible, treacherous sea. 

As he looked away into the east, his old home with 
its graves came before him. Oh, to be laid beside his 
loved ones in Galilee ! 



34 



NO MORE SEA. 

I know something of such a feeling. I remember, 
in the heat of a fever I had on the coast of China, how 
I glanced out upon the land about our hut, and the shud- 
dering feeling that came over me. What if I should die 
out here ? I could see the old scenes of my home, the 
old house, the trees, and the graves. There, lying upon 
my bed and looking away to the eastward, toward my 
home, all those memories of my home came to me. If I 
should die, I would be buried away from home. I remem- 
ber just then some one in another room began to sing. 
I heard them singing an old song, and it comes to my 
mind to-day as never before, as I think of John, looking 
away to his old home, and recalling the many happy 
days he had passed there, and the nearness of death. As 
they sang that old tune in the other room, how vividly 
came before me those old scenes of my childhood ! 

" How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood. 
When fond recollection presents them to view ! 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, 
And every loved spot which my infancy knew." 

I remember hearing those words, and then I tried to stop 
my ears for a while ; and when I took my hands from 
my ears, I heard them still singing : 

" And now, far removed from the loved situation. 

The tear of regret will intrusively swell, 
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation. 

And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well ; — 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. 

The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well." 

I can hear those words to-night, as I heard them then. 

John looks toward his home, and all the scenes of his 
childhood, like a Paradise, invite him home ; but between 



NO MORE SEA. 

him and Palestine crouches this terrible sea. On another 
day, perhaps, he looked away to the north-eastward^ and 
he thought of his church at Ephesus. Until I had a 
church, I never realized how a pastor would love it. 
John had established churches from Philadelphia, along 
the shore, to Smyrna, and even to Troy ; and he had 
worked with them and he loved them ; and as he looked 
toward them, the thought of Philadelphia, of Ephesus, 
of Pergamos, of Laodicea, as dear as life to him, he 
said, " They are going wrong, some of them are growing^ 
cold, and some of them are turning heretics." And he 
yearned to go to them. " Oh, if I could only go and 
speak to them, as I cannot write ; if they could see me,. 
I know they would reform ! Oh, if I could only get to 
them." And as he stands, reaching out his hands over 
the sea, there comes the thought to him again, " There 
was no more sea." 

He looks again to the west. He has grown moTe 
weary than ever of life. The year has gone, and he has 
not heard of Domitian's murder. He is thinking that 
he will not live much longer (and, indeed, he is said to- 
have died three and four years after). The sun goes 
down with glorious radiance. All nature seems to com- 
bine to make that sunset one of wondrous beauty, and 
when the sun disappeared below that blue water, John, 
looking away to the gorgeous halo in which it sinks, 
thinks of the Isles of the Blessed ! It was the belief in 
that day, universal in all the world, that the paradise of 
God lay beyond the sunset, and the glory of the heavens 
after the sun had gone down, and the glow which pre- 
ceded its rising in the east, was the reflection from the 
open gates of the golden land of God. The Apostles 
believed that this place of beauty, this paradise of God, 



36 



NO MORE SEA. 

where man shall know no more pain, lay beyond the 
sunset land. And John, as he looked to the westward, 
thought of its beauties, and longed, like David's dove, 
to fly away and be at rest. But between him and this 
paradise so lovely, seemed to flow this often beautiful, 
but traitorous sea. Between him and eternity lay, never 
at rest, never at peace, this sea. Between him and his 
God, between him and this land of beauty and joy, 
between him and all his loved ones gone before, moaned 
and groaned this terrible sea. 

I do not wonder that he should say, " There was 
no more sea." 

Heaven means that place where there is nothing to 
make us miserable. The heaven that we shall have, if 
we get into it at all, will contain everything to give us 
joy, nothing to give us pain. To John, such a state could 
not seem possible unless " there was no more sea." 

The sweetest scene in all the Bible to me, the sweetest 
expression found in the Holy Book, is where the old 
man sits in his arm-chair at Ephesus, at the end of 
his life, the people all gathering around him, saying, 
"" John is dying;" I see them kneel about him, while the 
old man, using the last breath of this life, says, " Little 
children, love one another;" and then his spirit glides 
softly away to that sunrise land where there is no more 
sea. 



37 



A Holy Day. 



" Remetnber the sabbath day to keep it holy.'' — Exod. 20 : 8. 



When Bayard Taylor, the traveler and poet, died, 
great sorrow was felt and exhibited by the people of this 
nation. I remember well the sadness which was noticed 
in the city of Boston. The spontaneous desire to give 
some expression to the respect in which Mr. Taylor's 
name was held, pressed the literary people of Boston, 
both writers and readers, forward to a public memorial 
in the great hall of Tremont Temple. As a friend of 
Mr. Taylor, I was called upon to preside at that memo- 
rial gathering. That audience of the scholarly classes 
was a wonderful tribute to a remarkable man, and one 
for which I feel still a keen sense of gratitude. I remem- 
ber asking Mr. Longfellow to write a poem, and to read 
it, and standing on the broad step at his front door, in 
Cambridge, he replied to my suggestion with the sweet 
expression : " The universal sorrow is almost too sacred to 
touch with a pen!^ 

But when the evening came, although Professor 
Longfellow was too ill to be present, his poem was there. 
The great hall was crowded with the most cultivated 
people of Boston. On the platform sat many of the 
poets, orators and philosophers, who have since passed 
into the Beyond. When, after several speeches had 



39 



A HOL Y DAY. 

been made, I arose to introduce Dr. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, the pressure of the crowd was too great for me 
to reach my chair again, and I took for the time the seat 
which Dr. Holmes had just left, and next to Ralph Waldo 
Emerson. Never were words of poet listened to with 
a silence so respectfully profound as were the words of 
Professor Longfellow's poem as they were so touchingly 
and beautifully read by Dr. Holmes. 

" Dead he lay among his books ! 
The peace of God was in his looks. 

* * * * 

Let the lifeless body rest ! 
He is gone who was its guest ; 
Gone as travelers haste to leave 
An inn, nor tarry until eve. 
Traveler, in what realms afar, 
In what planet, in what star, 
In what vast aerial space, 
Shines the light upon thy face ? 
In what gardens of delight 
Rest thy weary feet to-night ? " 
■X- * -x- * 

Before Dr. Holmes resumed his seat, Mr. Emerson 
whispered in my ear, in his epigrammatic style " This is 
holy Sabbath timer 

The phrase was a study for me many days after, 
like many other marvelous expressions of that great 
philosopher. The words always sound again in my ear 
whenever the text I have chosen to-night is read in my 
hearing. What can be sweeter or more soul-purifying 
than the holy Sabbath time ? I shall not attempt, in my 
conversation with you to-night, dear friends, to discuss 
the question whether Saturday or Sunday is the scrip- 
tural Sabbath, and it cannot be said that either of them 



40 



A HOL Y DA V. 

is the sacred day which it ought to be to this city or 
country. If the time, money and brain power spent in 
trying to prove that the Sabbath begins at sunset Satur- 
day night or at sunrise Saturday morning, or ^t day- 
break on Sunday morning, and in unsettling the question 
whether or not God rested as we rest in sleep, or whether 
or not they had a Sabbath before Moses, or whether or 
not Jesus abolished the Sabbath altogether, or whether 
■or not Constantine instead of the Apostles changed the 
Sabbath to the first day of the week — if all that expense 
had been used in making any day or all days really more 
holy, how the world would have been blessed! One 
thing is certain, and that is that we have a day we can 
make holy, and if there has been any mistake about it in 
the past, let us make the best of our present opportunities. 
Seventh Day Baptists, and First Day Baptists, Adventists, 
Presbyterians, or non-sectarians, cannot make any one 
day too holy if they try. Tke great practical need of the 
world now is, more holy days. Not sham days of gloom 
and religious ill-temper ! Not silly days of weeping for 
sins long since forgiven ! Not days passed in supersti- 
tious stocks with the key thrown in the well until Mon- 
day. Not days of foolish search after body and soul 
killing pleasure. Not days of dissipation. Not days of 
blank forgetfulness of God and humanity. We have all 
of such days that the world can bear. 

I do not think that the angel at death's gate, as he 
questions your soul whether you wish to go to the golden 
city or to the temple of despair, will ask you whether you 
kept Saturday or Sunday. It is far more probable that 
he will ask you if you made any day unholy, or how 
many holy days you had in your life. To save you 
trouble then I put the question to you now, that you may 



41 



A HOL V DA Y. 

have time to consider the matter; how many actually 
holy days have you ever seen ? Notice, I ask you how 
many holy days. Not how many feasts, not how many 
church days, not how many days you appeared to be 
religious! For history teaches the most reluctant 
student that it is possible for a man to be rigid as a Turk 
in reciting his prayers, and in compelling others to recite 
them, and at the same time as cruel as a Tartar at home, 
and stingy as a Shylock in church. 

But we mean days the Lord made holy, not dates 
which men or churches set down in the calendar for cere- 
monies. The blessed days so strangely rare when the life 
and earth were hallowed by some sense of the overflow- 
ing goodness of God. A Sabbath means a season when 
we draw near to God, and when he draws near to us. 
How many such days have we seen ? The number of 
such days is the test of our Christian life. 

How was it with your childhood ? God pity the 
man who had no Christian mother and no Christian 
father ! Lord, have mercy on the children who had no 
childish Sabbaths! Were you brought up to spend the 
Sunday in card-playing, in wandering about the streets, 
or in homes where drunkenness and profanity or increased 
wickedness marked the day set down as a Sabbath ? Or 
were you in a home where the harsh tread and shivering 
squeak of Sunday boots announced the approach of 
a parental tyrant, who made your young blood chill every 
time he uttered the threat, " Remember, children, this is the 
holy Sabbath day, and don't you dare to forget it " ? 
Lord, mercifully love such children, for they had no Sab- 
baths! 

But, dear friends, glance away back to the morning 
of your life. See yourself again a child. It is Sunday 



4a 



I 



A HOL V DA V. 

morning. You know it because the daylight comes on, and 
not a sound is heard. The hastening footsteps, the opening 
and closing of doors, the rattle of breakfast dishes heard 
on other mornings, disturb not the sacred silence. Father 
is still abed, and perhaps asleep. Mother is probably 
awake, but she won't tell your father you are coming. 
You hold up your little night-dress with one hand, and 
slyly open your bedroom door to peep in to see papa. 
If he is not asleep, he pretends to be. Then with an 
impatient leap and a shout you burst into the room, 
clamber up on your parents' bed, and tug and pull at your 
father's beard or hands to awaken him. He won't open 
his eyes, and he tries to breathe hard, but the involuntary 
smile that gleams all over his face tells you that he is 
awake, and that his heart is full of love for you. Your 
parents take you into their bed, and with God-like affec- 
tion play with you for an hour, telling you stories of 
good deeds, and teaching you your Scripture verse for 
Sunday-school. Do you remember seeing your father 
and mother kneeling together at that bedside, and did 
you hear your father thank God for another sweet day of 
love and rest ? Did you hear him say, " Dear Saviour, 
love and bless our child " ? Oh ! how sweet it is to you, 
who have seen such Sabbath mornings in homes where 
God is — for God is love. 

But think how many children have no such Sab- 
baths, no bright greetings, no morning kiss, no loving 
play or affectionate counsel. Oh, if by some magic power 
we could thrust sin out of the world, and change at a 
word the hearts of godless parents, what a Sabbath the 
children would have the next morning ! Their holy joy 
would only be exceeded by that of the parents them- 
selves. If any of you had no Sabbath morning to-day, 



43 



A HOLY DAY, 

nor gave your children one, then begin and let Monday 
be a holy Sabbath to you both. The day is holy that is 
hallowed by a new love for God. 

Do you remember the day you pledged your faith, 
heart, and hand, for life, to wife or husband ? Was it in 
simple, sincere affection, unbiased by beauty or gold ? 
What a Sabbath was that day in which love overflowed 
its banks and watered every barren field of life ! Only one 
day of life can be more thrillingly happy than that ; and 
that is the Sabbath when a sinful soul first comprehends 
the fullness and freedom of God's love. How many 
Sabbaths have you two had together ? How many days 
when holy love has had unhindered possession of the 
day ? Count them up now. If they have been many, 
they might have been more. 

Recall now the holy Sabbath time when the house 
was so dark, and a coffin lay in the parlor. Mother! 
What a holy day that was ! In the deepest grief the 
spirit of God seemed to soften the dark picture with a 
heavenly glow. How sacred the next Sunday seemed 
after mother's death. A Sabbath indeed. Sunday comes 
every week, but without love it is no Sabbath. Many 
keep Sunday who never see a Sabbath. 

Picture to yourself a Sabbath, a holy day, and tell 
me \( this day has been kept by you as a Sabbath. 

It is a day to serve the God of love. If you have 
kept it, you began it with kind smiles and kind words. 
You began it with a prayer to God for his help to enable 
you to be for this day a true and Christ-like man or 
woman. You cheered your friends ; you caressed your 
children ; you were patient with faults ; you encouraged 
joy and affection, and thanked God for a day of rest. If 
you have kept this day holy, you have not forgotten to 



44 



A HOLY DAY. 

forgive. Any brute can cherish spite, any savage can 
remember an injury, but it is God-like to forgive. You 
have made this day holy by forgiveness and the welding 
anew of the broken bands of love. You have sought 
reconciliation, and, " with charity for all, and malice 
toward none," have lived in sacred peace. 

If you have kept it holy, you have been a blessing 
to others; you have cared for your own in kindness; 
you have visited the poor in charity ; you have spoken 
words of truth and wisdom to the sinful ; you have not 
suffered custom or superstition or ceremony or laziness 
to come between you and any good deed. Some one is 
happier, and some one will have blessed Sabbaths, because 
of your care or love to-day. If this day has been a real 
Sabbath, kept in the fear of the Lord, you have led no 
one into bad company, you have drawn none away from 
the house of God, you have not embittered any heart, or 
laid temptation in the way of the weak. If you have 
kept this day as a true Sabbath, you have, with your 
bodies washed with pure water, your heart purified from 
evil thoughts, and your lips untouched with impure 
words, worshiped the Lord in spirit and in truth. 

While no one can be too honest, honorable, faithful, 
or kind, on any day of the week, it is a safe and wise 
thing to have one day in seven set apart as a special 
reminder. The man or woman will, as a rule, soon die, 
or live a lingering death, who does not rest from secular 
labor as often as one day in seven ; and experience has 
shown that happiness, health, prosperity, and righteous- 
ness do largely depend on the maintenance of a Sabbath. 
But this means a real Sabbath, and not a day of sports, 
labor, or selfish sleep. It means a day of change, and 
holy change ; a day of sweet and restful meditation ; a 



45 



A HOLY DAY. 

day of trusting for one's self, and of service of God for 
others. 

" Oh, day of rest and gladness ! 

Oh, day of joy and light ! 
Oh, balm of care and sadness, 

Most beautiful, most bright ! 
Thou art a holy ladder, 

Where angels go and come : 
Each Sunday finds us gladder, 

Nearer to heaven our home. 
A day of sweet refection 

Thou art, a day of love, 
A day of resurrection 

From earth to things above." 
***** 

It was Sunday afternoon. Graves were all around, 
but they stood together looking down upon a little green 
mound. That husband and wife had lived together most 
unhappily and selfishly. But the calm quietness of the 
sacred day, the soft sunshine, lured them to the cemetery. 
They met at the grave. Silently they look down. To 
both of them came the visions of the little boy as he 
stood at the head of the stairs, and cried : " Papa, papa, 
don't strike my mamma ! " They could hear his bare 
baby feet again as they toddled behind the door in fright 
at their quarreling. They could see his flushed and 
feverish face in the crib, and hear his wild talk as in his 
dreams he called out, "Mamma, don't! mamma, don't! 
Warren will die if you do so ! " Then the white face, the 
coffin, the grave. Now, here they stand, the little grave 
between them. Tears come fast and free. The mother 
kneels, and rests her head upon the sod, and cries aloud. 
The father slowly bends and drops on one knee. He 
places one hand on his wife's head, and says: " Sallie, I 



46 



A HOL V DA Y, 

wandered into a church to-day, and I wish you had been 
there. The minister read in the Bible that children 
especially belong to the kingdom of God, and are angels 
in heaven. I believe it, Sallie ; and I believe our little 
Warren is not down here, but is up with God looking at 
us. Sallie, can't we live better ? Is it not possible to be 
more patient and more true ? Come, Sallie, let us here 
vow to quarrel no more, and live so we won't think of War- 
ren calling "Papa, don't! mamma, don't!" The wife 
looks up into her husband's face through streams of tears. 
She takes his hands, and holds them up towards heaven, 
and both silently pray. Their hearts change, love comes 
streaming down from God, and the angels of God, with 
little Warren among them, rejoice over the sinner that 
repenteth. They rise together and kiss each other ; then 
arm in arm turn towards home in fullest affection. Love 
has made that Sunday into a holy Sabbath. 

Down in Richmond Village a poor man lay dying, 
five weeks ago to-day. I had often visited him in his 
poverty. But he felt, as I could plainly see, that my 
visits were official, and my gifts were probably those of 
some public charity. Oh, how much loftier and holier 
is the word *' friend " than the word " reverend ! " I think 
he believed I prayed because it was my business to pray, 
and because I was hired to do it. If I had told him that 
the basket I brought was my own, he would have said 
that I was telling a falsehood. So I left him as unre- 
pentant as I found him, and as ungrateful for the food 
and medicine as are the habitual recipients of public 
bounty. But four weeks ago to-day I met a Christian 
of this congregation, and asked him to go down to visit 
the old man and take him a basket of food and medicine. 
My Christian friend looked amazed at my request, and 



47 



A HOL V DA V. 

asked me how he would look with a market-basket going 
through all those streets on Sunday. I told him that all 
who saw him would probably think that he was the only 
one who really was keeping the Sabbath. He decided 
to go, and an enormous basket he had indeed. He went 
with no professional title. There was no " Rev." before 
his name, and no " D.D." after it. The dying man knew 
that he did not come for pay. His heart opened in the pres- 
ence of a plain-spoken man, and he honestly inquired if 
it was actually a fact that there was another life after this. 
They talked together as friend with friend ; and Jesus 
drew near as they talked, and their hearts burned within 
them. The sick man believed, and prayed for forgive- 
ness, and died five days after, saying to his nephew : 
" Don't put off giving your heart to God." Last Sunday 
my friend asked me for more such work, saying it was a 
new experience to him. " As God lives," said he, " I 
shall not forget that Sabbath." He had made it a real 
Sabbath 

Ten years ago, when all the region about this church 
was woodland and field, several young men from the 
Tenth Baptist Church of this city strolled out this way 
one Sunday afternoon. The world said they were too 
pious to enjoy Sunday, and bigoted worshipers of the day 
instead of its God ; and perhaps some people said they 
were ungodly traitors to their church vows to " remem- 
ber the Sabbath day to keep it holy." But they found 
a room in a house at what is now the corner of Mont- 
gomery Avenue and Twelfth Street, saying : " Let us 
start a mission." The houses were scattered and the 
children few. But pressed on by the Lord of that Sab- 
bath which was made for man, they began the work in 
faith. The next Sunday was spent by them in street^ 



48 



A HOL Y DA V. 

lane and by-ways, inviting children to come and learn 
the way to Christ ; and I doubt if even these Sabbaths 
with crowds at our doors which cannot find room to 
enter, are so sacred and dear as was that initial Sabbath 
in the Master's work. I strongly doubt if even the 
inspiring presence of the hundreds which have pressed 
into the kingdom here in these two years give as great 
a glow of joy as the first conversion gave them then. 
They had a Sabbath's opportunity before them. They 
had an open field for practical work, and they used it well. 
Oh ! those must have been glad Sabbaths. Not cere- 
monial Sundays, but true Sabbaths. 

A glance about me shows the happy faces of scores 
who sought the Saviour on Sunday, who found him on 
Sunday, and who made public confession of him on Sun- 
day. What holy days those Sabbaths were to them! 
That day is specially sacred when God descends to bless 
a soul with life eternal. Let no man say that any day is 
not the Sabbath which God hallows and blesses with his 
special benediction. Every day may be a Sabbath time ; 
and especially the first day of the week, which the Chris- 
tian world finds already set apart by the Providence of 
God, if not, as many of us believe, by his direct revelation, 
for a season of entire consecration. Man of God, whoso- 
ever you are, and whatsoever day you believe to be the 
Sabbath, do you keep that day as Christ kept it ? If 
you do, then we will not quarrel about dates. 



49 



Where it Listeth. 



The wind bloweth where it listeth^ — John j : 8, 



For three successive years our church has beei\ 
refreshed by strong revival feeling during the heat of 
summer. The crowd which pressed into this church last 
Sunday evening, until no more could find standing-room, 
was a most significant sight to me. The middle of 
August, in an unusually hot season, is not the time 
wherein the people of a city have been wont to press 
into the house of God. How clearly the fact contradicts 
the popular belief that God will visit his people with 
revival inspirations only in the winter season ! God is 
no respecter of persons nor of seasons. Heat and cold, 
night and day, are alike to Him. Any church or indi- 
vidual sincerely desiring God's blessing can secure it in 
August as surely as in January. 

Revivals need not be spasmodic nor fluctuating. 
The stream of God's love is as continuous and perma- 
nent as the light and heat of the sunshine. The variable- 
ness and shadow of turning is all on our part. The 
Almighty Father is the same yesterday, to-day and 
forever. 

A revival of religious interest in a church, when studied 
with scientific care, is due both to natural and supernatural 



51 



WHERE IT LISTETH, 

causes ; that is, to causes we can understand, combined 
with influences we cannot yet scientifically fathom. God 
works as a spirit, and seems to require certain favorable 
conditions in His spiritual work, as He does for growth 
or life in the natural world. 

If you place a seed in the earth where the moisture 
will soften its covering, and where the sunshine will warm 
its bed, with such chemical constituents of a fertile soil 
about it as will give the incipient fermentation, the 
germ will start into life, and become a tree. But should 
you plant that seed in soil that is cold, or in the dark, or 
in a sand-bank, there will be no growth. The great 
spirit of life cannot or will not work under such circum- 
stances. Given certain favorable conditions, the healthy 
seed will invariably spring into active growth. Given 
certain favorable conditions, and spiritual quickening and 
growth as invariably follow. 

The time of the year is no factor in promoting revivals, 
except as the weather and business may be affected unfavor- 
ably or agreeably by it. The law of spiritual being appears 
to be as unchangeable as the natural. Careful observation 
of the phenomena appears most satisfactorily to establish 
the fact that in spiritual matters, as in natural life, there are 
invariable effects which follow certain causes. 

A united gathering of human beings believing in the 
same thing, having no quarrels with each other, and hav- 
ing a common hope of salvation, will always be power- 
fully moved by spiritual emotions whenever and where- 
ever they meet to pray or to sing in sincere worship of 
God. 

There is a natural inspiration in large numbers, 
which becomes very effective for good when Christians 
assemble. This natural effect has been often seen when 



52 



WHERE IT LISTETH, 

men have gathered for some patriotic or incendiary 
purpose. Armies rush boldly to victory with the same 
natural impulse that causes them, when panic-stricken, 
to flee Hke the wind. Mobs wildly burn and murder 
under that human impulse which is felt only amid great 
numbers ; and the voice of the people seems to be the 
voice of God, because men do and say things then utterly 
unaccountable to themselves. The mysterious mesmeric 
or other influence which numbers exert over the indi- 
vidual, is a powerful agent for good or for evil. It is felt 
in great assemblies in churches, halls, and camp grounds, 
where our greatest revivals occur. It is a natural agency 
which should be used, and is used, for the promotion of 
kuman salvation. It is a kind of emotional ecstasy which 
is felt only in collections of human beings, and may be 
either natural or spiritual, or both. But it is one of the 
necessary conditions to a positive revival of spiritual 
interest. Hence, the first condition necessary for an out- 
pouring of the Spirit is an assembly of people. Let us 
not forget the assembling of ourselves together. Such 
an assemblage can be gathered in August, although it is 
not often done at this season in the city. 

Having then the assembly, whether in the groves, 
or by the seashore, or in the church, it is next necessary 
that the minds of the mass of the people should be con- 
centrated on one common religious thought. A divided 
or wrangling assembly never promoted a religious revival. 
And often, when the heart of the church was at fever heat, 
some disagreeable, cranky, or wicked man has put in 
some thought or declaration that dispersed all religious 
feeling like the cloud before a northern blast. But a 
multitude moved by a common love or a common fear, 
having a common sense of duty toward God, and a com- 



53 



WHERE IT LISTETH. 

mon desire to secure His favor, is an agency so strong" 
in giving impulse to religious life, that I have never known 
it to fail in securing the blessing of God abundantly. 

The conversion of the individual is also found 
to be influenced largely by natural causes. The boy 
has heard his mother praying for him in years long 
past, and some face, or expression, or some keepsake, 
brings the fact freshly to mind. Or death has come,, 
and taken a dear one. Or he is accidentally placed 
among religious companions. Or fearful disease brings 
him face to face with death. Or he is invited by friends, 
or led by curiosity, or by desire for comfort or sport, 
into a prayer-meeting, where the power of God in nature 
is first felt. And in consequence of his being placed 
under one of these conditions, his heart, naturally turns 
to God, is changed, and life begins anew. 

" How shall they believe on Him of whom they have 
not heard ? " How shall they hear without a preacher, 
or trust in God without these conditions ? I do not 
think any soul ever surrendered itself to God without 
being first influenced by some natural condition of its 
environment. 

These and other preliminary conditions seem abso- 
lutely necessary to the conversion of a soul, and whoso- 
ever complies with them will be born again ; and who- 
soever keeps himself outside their influence, will continue 
in and die in his sins. 

To secure a reival, then, it is necessary that the 
church should place itself in the right relation to the 
natural influences that control so largely men's minds 
and emotions. There must be a gathering of people. 
Hence, the minister must so preach, the musicians so sing 
or play, and the individuals so work, as to secure an 



54 



WHERE IT LISTETH. 

assemblage of people. The larger the assemblage the 
more efficient it will be, provided the people are of one 
accord and one mind. 

The kind, character and purpose of the multitude 
is of vast importance. A preacher may by means of 
sensational themes, circus posters, eccentric buffoonery, 
startling music, or even by reason of his own reputation 
for immorality, draw a crowd to a church. But such a 
gathering lacks the necessary conditions for a revival of 
pure religion, and souls will not be converted there 
through the influence of a multitude. But such unwar- 
ranted means for collecting a crowd at church are no 
more deserving of our condemnation, and no more sure 
to fail, than long, dull sermons, dragging and groaning 
vocal music, gloomy prayers, the provokingly over-pious- 
ness or hypocritical sanctimoniousness of men whose 
heads and hearts are both empty. 

An attractive church, in building, furniture, organ 
and ventilation, is a helpful thing, and to be secured if 
possible. But that is not always a necessity. But an 
attractive church in godliness of character, earnestness 
of worship, in brotherly unity, in hearty welcome to all, 
in cheerful activity in every good cause, is an indispen- 
sable condition to secure the Spirit's continued power. 
Given these conditions, and the season of the year will 
not hinder a revival in any city where there are people to 
go to church. 

To secure those conditions should be the constant 
effort of every Christian in the church. 

The same practical thought applies to the individual 
seeker after Christ. Place yourself in the right relation 
to God. The stream of infinite love flows ceaselessly 
on. Put yourself in the current, and you will be carried 



55 



WHERE IT LISTETH. 

•on surely and sweetly to eternal salvation. If you are a 
sincere seeker after Christ, go to church. Avoid a god- 
less church, vi^hich has the name of living, and yet is dead. 
Avoid the counsel of Pharisees, and shun those who for 
show make long prayers. Associate with the simple and 
pure. Go to church where sincerity and piety are 
the chief characteristics of the pulpit, and where 
sensational display is strenuously avoided. Go to 
the prayer-meetings where earnest souls try to draw 
near to Christ, and where love for each other proves their 
love for God. Where others are being converted, you 
can safely go. Read the Bible. Any good book is ele- 
vating. But the Bible is chiefest among books, and by it 
alone have millions been revived and saved from sin. 
Keep ever in the society of Christian people, and gain 
the advantages of social influence. 

All this is natural. Such a course will tend to con- 
vince and confirm in Christian principles just as asso- 
ciation with professions, trades, pleasure-seekers or 
debauchees tends to draw us with them. Christianity, 
like any other good thing, grows attractive and becomes 
better established the more we investigate it. This much 
can be said and be confirmed by every man's common 
sense. I mean, when I use the term " Christianity," the 
pure, honorable, holy and true in life, aside from any 
man's religious hobby. 

But beyond all these natural influences, yet inva- 
riably following them, is the mysterious Spirit of God. 
After we have carefully analyzed the causes and effects 
of association, early teaching, eloquent preaching, and 
united assemblies, there is in the revival of the church, 
and in the conversion of a man or woman, an agency and 
power inscrutable and wonderful, the effects of which can 



56 



WHERE IT LISTETH, 

find no philosophic antecedents in anything we now 
know of natural law. 

It is an easy matter to test it by experiment. Let 
the investigator place himself amid Christian associations, 
and carefully treasure up the good he finds, as day by day 
he moves on, and soon his life will feel the onflow of 
peace like a river. Like a river, too, his religious expe- 
rience will at first be simple, and easily comprehended in 
a single glance. But he will move on and on with the tide 
of God's love ; the banks will recede, the stream become 
wider, deeper, stronger, and more sublime, until it loses 
itself in that ocean of eternal goodness whose shores no man 
can trace, and whose billows are moved by the unfathom- 
able power of the mighty First Cause, beyond the reach 
of intellectual research. There is a potent influence 
which every true Christian feels, and under whose work- 
ing marvelous changes in character are made. It is 
mysterious, intangible, spiritual. It cannot be reduced 
to formula or natural law, so far as we can now reason. 
It steps just over the bounds of mental comprehension 
and sensual description, and reaches into the inscrutable 
Beyond. It is not unreasonable. It is not unnatural. 
It is in harmony with all laws of nature, but is a power 
which reaches beyond physical nature. We call it the 
Spirit of God. No man can explain it, nor can any 
person describe its influence who has not felt its sweet 
but potent inspiration. Every man or woman, and every 
church, may know its power by following the natural 
road that leads to it. Repentance, love, humility, and 
persevering association with the good and true, never 
were known to fail to bring souls into the Spirit of God, 



57 



At Athens Alone. 



•' We thought it good to be left at Athens alone.''' — i Thess. j : t. 



At Athens alone ! What pictures of earthly glory, 
and what a luxury of intellectual feasting, the words of 
Paul bring before the mind ! Athens ! The Mecca of 
intellectual pilgrimage. The home of the ideal in art, phi- 
losophy and poetry. Even to the ordinary mind of to-day, 
wherein is found no unusual knowledge of Grecian 
history and accomplishments, and wandering among un- 
recognizable ruins, the place is intoxicating with inspiring 
associations and natural beauty. If the student of our time 
finds such a halo on Hymettus, such fascinating gleams 
of beauty from the Parthenon, the Theseum, the Illissus, 
and the modern olive-groves, what, think you, must have 
been the sensations and thoughts of a scholar and genius 
like Paul, who visited the city while still in its glory ? 

The reader of Canon Farrar's Life of Paul meets 
with the remarkable statement, that " it was with no 
thrill of rapture, no royal recognition of grace and great-, 
ness, that Paul landed at Phalerum or Piraeus, and saw 
the crowning edifices of the Acropolis, as they towered 
over the wilderness of meaner temples, stand out in their 
white lustre against the clear blue sky." Providentially 



59 



AT A THENS AL ONE. 

for the reputation of the apostle as a man, a scholar, 
and as a follower of Jesus, his own writings and Luke's 
record of his life clearly and fully contradict that extraor- 
dinary assertion. Absurdity seems to have crowned 
itself when it assumes that a scholar of St. Paul's 
attainments, educated in Grecian Tarsus, and graduating 
from the school of the Greek-loving Gamaliel, being also 
the friend and companion of educated Greeks, having an 
active imagination that compelled him often to speak in 
pictures, having a broad intellect that recognized the good, 
the true, and the beautiful, and having a heart that loved 
them, when he did see them, could visit the shores of 
classic Greece in her glory, and not " think it good to be 
left at Athens alone." Judging by the general tone of 
his writings and speeches, the often-repeated quotation of 
Grecian thought, and sometimes his direct transfer of the 
language of Grecian classics, his repeated reference to 
Grecian manners, games and customs, there have been 
no foreign visitors in Athens, not excepting Cicero and 
Pausanias, more conscious of the beautiful adornments, 
or more appreciative of her wonderful learning, than the 
apostle Paul. We read that the learned apostle's " spirit 
was stirred, or provoked, within him, when he saw the 
city wholly given to idolatry." How Christ-like that 
feeling of unhappiness appears to the Bible reader, w^ho 
places alongside of the record of Paul looking upon 
Athens the story of Jesus looking on Jerusalem and 
weeping over it. Jesus loved and appreciated Jerusalem. 
Paul admired and appreciated Athens. 

Unroll, unroll, thou scroll of time, and spread 
before us now in panoramic clearness the city of Athens 
as Paul saw it ! 

The ship there, rounding Sunium's temple-crowned 



60 



AT ATHENS ALONE. 

promontory, can be seen among a thousand sails as it 
flies like a dove over the beautiful blue of the Saronic 
Gulf. In the softly colored atmosphere of God's most 
beautiful climate, every mountain and hill stand clear 
cut, and seemingly so near. As the good ship cuts the 
wave with her brazen prow, and draws near to the stone 
towers which mark the entrance to Piraeus' harbor, 
oh ! what scenes attract the eyes of the apostle ! The 
Acropolis ! There, perched on the cliff, the Parthenon 
and Erechtheum gleam in pillars of white, and near 
them the glittering shield and spear of the mighty 
Phidian statue of Minerva show the goddess keeping 
guard over her loved city. At the foot of the Acropolis, 
with its numberless niches filled with shrines and tem- 
ples, can be seen the hilly city, each eminence crowned 
with beautiful temples ! From Hymettus to Lycabettus, 
from the Ilissus to Parnes mountains, walls of massive 
stone, carved like a cameo, enclose miles of gorgeous 
porches filled with exquisite statuary, and square after 
square of public and private palaces. 

Look at this company of Greek scholars, of which 
Paul is one. Mark the small, wiry man, with keen eye 
and nervous movements. Has he no interest in that 
Athens of which he has heard in song, in story and 
philosophy, from his earliest boyhood ? He passes 
through the dark shadow of the Pirean gate, and the 
city is before him ! Oh, what a privilege, to see it 
entire, unbroken by war! Away, away stretches the 
great city highway toward the Acropolis, close hemmed 
with gorgeous palaces of marble, and porches, the pillars 
of which were most exquisitely wrought statues. Under 
the shady porch Paul walks slowly on, gazing in wonder at 
the numberless revelations of surpassing beauty. Altars, 



6i 



AT ATHENS ALONE, 

altars, everywhere ! Altars to the gods of earth, sea, 
sky, storm, thunder, seasons, rivers, mountains, harvests, 
and labors ; shrines of precious stones to the spirits of 
the winds, to the angels of peace, to modesty, to pity, 
and to love ; and niches for the fauns and satyrs of wood- 
lands and fountains. The roar of a busy commerce 
shakes the pavement, and crowds of busy people press 
to and fro in street and walk. 

But here is the Agora, — the market-place, where 
men meet to bargain and chat. How unlike the markets 
of other cities ! Not an animal to be seen, nor a piece 
of merchandise. Only bargaining is done on this white 
pavement, or in the shades of these wonderful porches. 
Here is the Stoa Pceciie, — the palace of the Stoics, — 
with its long colonijades of marble, and its profusion of 
statues and busts. Perhaps Paul steps into the long 
arched galleries within, and looks with interest on the 
paintings and frescoes which so grandly preserved the 
most exciting events of Athenian history. To suppose 
he is insensible to all this, is to believe him a boor, and 
contradict the sacred record. 

As we trace Paul's steps day by day after Timothy 
is gone, and he is left alone, what scenes pass before us ! 
One day he visits the Areopagus and the Temple of 
Mars which rises from one side of the market-place, and 
examines the trophies of Marathon and Thermopylae, or 
listens to the lawyers pleading before the Areopagian 
Supreme Court which also sat on " Mars' Hill." Another 
day we see him examining the long arcades of the 
Olympian Temple, on the plain where in incompleteness 
the roofless one hundred and twenty-four pillars, sixty 
feet high, stand awaiting the decorated roof of stone. 
Another day he spends on the other side of the city 



62 



AT A THENS ALONE. 

scrutinizing the Theseum and the groves of the Acade- 
micians, and the walks of the Peripatetics. But the 
crowning day was when with a reverential tread he 
ascends the long, long stairway between those colonnades 
of the ancient gods and modern heroes, wrought as with 
angel fingers, and then stands one hundred and fifty feet 
above the city on the platform of the Acropolis. Here 
in the chaste neatness of the Propylaea, in the delicate 
traceries of the Erechtheum, and in the sublime dignity 
of the wonderful Parthenon, he sees works of art which the 
servants of Hiram could not imitate, and which Solomon 
in all his glory did not approach. The view from the 
porches, the towering statue of Minerva, seventy feet 
aloft, in the square before the temple, the golden statue of 
the goddess within, the masterpieces of Phidias and 
Alcamenes filling every niche and adorning every nook^ 
must have been far more interesting then than the ruin is 
now. And yet to-day in her ruin every intelligent traveler 
feels his spirits, like Byron's, " rising within him," as he 
gazes upon the bare remnants of that ancient grandeur. 

If we follow Paul through those days of his visit, we 
would see him in the house of Aristotle, kept carefully as 
a memorial. We would find him making the acquain- 
tance of the disciples of Socrates, on the shaded slopes 
of Lycabettus, meeting with scholars in the Stoa Pcecile 
discussing the merits of Thales and Zeno, or in the embow- 
ered gardens of the Epicureans arguing concerning the 
highest good and greatest happiness. 

Instead of being indifferent to the attractions of the 
city, it is but reasonable to believe that nearly everything 
but the great amphitheatre was acutely interesting to him. 
Does the student then ask why Paul's spirit was so stirred ? 
The answer is plain in the apparent fact that he regarded 



63 



AT A THENS ALONE. 

the city as so very noble, so fascinatingly beautiful, and 
so wonderfully wise. 

St. Paul had much in common with the great 
artists who had made Athens beautiful. He had been 
taught by his Hebrew parents, if he did not learn it from 
the philosophic schools of Tarsus, that the most astound- 
ing and the most beautiful of God's creation is man. 
There were thousands of statues of the highest ideal 
conception, of a perfect human form divine, figures 
in whitest marble, of loveliest womanhood, so chaste 
in posture, so pure in feature, so like the sinless Eve,. 
so godlike as to suggest worship rather than shame, 
although often nude. There were men of marble so self- 
forgetful in pose, so filled with some noble thought, and so 
divine in their strength and dignity, that the badge of 
sin which we impure creatures must wear, would there 
have been a suggestion of evil. There were forms of 
angelic beings, there were imitations of nature in stone, 
and massive temples supremely grand, all carved by 
skillful man. There was nothing in that art to conflict with 
the pure and undefiled religion of the world's Saviour. 

In the literature of Athens, Paul found much to 
admire. The enchanting scenes of Homer conflict not 
with the word of God. Many a Grecian had been made 
heroically self-sacrificing and patriotic by the histories 
of Agamemnon, Ajax and Achilles. Many a woman of 
Athens had been strengthened in virtue by the story of 
Penelope. Aratus, whom Paul so aptly quoted in his 
speech before the august Areopagites, was no discredit 
to the morals or the literary skill of his time. 

In science Paul found much to help him in his 
worship of God. Aristotle drew very near to the 
Creator in his marvelous discoveries in mental and 



64 



AT A THENS ALONE. 

physical science. He who studies the work of that 
great teacher to-day will find himself lost in wonder at 
the marvelous creations and divine laws which are there 
revealed. To study the structures of animal life, to dis- 
cover the laws that control the movements of a universe 
of worlds, or mark the wondrous adjustments of that 
marvelous spiritual machine called mind, is stepping 
upward toward the Almighty mind. If any man should 
worship God it is the astronomer, the geologist, the 
botanist, the zoologist, or the metaphyscian. The 
greater shame be theirs if they do not ! 

In philosophy, Paul found a confirmation strong 
and abiding of biblical truth. Socrates ! Many Chris- 
tian scholars place him among the inspired prophets. He 
taught the highest morality, and Paul uses Plato's lan- 
guage, and Socrates' thoughts in many portions of his 
letters to the Corinthians and Romans, If he did not 
quote them direct, then two " great minds traveled in 
the same channel." More wonderful than Moses was 
that great intellectual reasoner. For what God revealed 
direct to Moses and the Prophets, Socrates, with giant 
intellect, discovered for himself. Paul sincerely believed 
in the conclusion of Socrates concerning the immortality 
of the soul. The Academicians and the Peripatetics, the 
Stoics and Epicureans, all taught principles which were 
elevating and strictly moral, so far as the fundamentals 
were concerned. The few philosophers who called Paul a 
"babbler," did so only because they did not understand 
his system of religion ; and if you read Luke's account 
of their reception of Paul, you will see that the masses 
accorded Paul marks of high respect, instead of the ridi- 
cule usually supposed. They could not have taken any 
man for ridicule into the august council-chamber of the 



65 



ATA THENS AL ONE, 

Areopagus, nor said they would hear him again, if 
all or a majority had been mere scoffers. The teaching 
of the Epicureans, that the greatest happiness is the 
highest good, and that we should seek for those things 
which will make us the most permanently happy, is 
good gospel. " To be good is to be happy." The 
teaching of the Stoic, that we should not be moved from 
our duty by present joy or pain, to patiently endure 
whatever comes to us, was Paul's own declaration after- 
ward when he said, " I have learned, in whatsoever state 
I. am, therewith to be content." 

When Paul reasoned with them, they endorsed 
everything he said against idols, and in favor of the un- 
known God, and none found fault with his oration until he 
spoke of the resurrection from the dead. 

In the mythology, so far as the Athenians believed 
in it as a religion, there was nothing as immoral as has 
often been charged. ** The gods can do no injustice," said 
Socrates. " The gods will reward the virtuous and 
punish the bad." " The wicked man feareth Zeus," says 
Plato. The Athenian religion had its fundamentals, 
which, when poetical accounts of the gods were thrown 
aside, as they were in Paul's time, were precepts 
of pure morality and virtue. The gospel of Jesus 
Christ goes heart and hand with every philosophy which 
clearly. teaches virtue and pure morals. Paul told them 
that he perceived in everything they " were very religious ;" 
and he spoke it as a compliment, and he unquestionably 
told the truth. 

Paul, who believed in '' principalities and powers " 
and in angelic visitations, must have felt the sweetness 
and beauty of the Grecian faith in the spirits that dwelt 
in every living and in every moving thing. The deifica- 



66 



AT A THENS ALONE. 

tion of nature's marvels and nature's sounds was an intel- 
lectual recognition of the Supernatural, which did credit, 
after all, to their wisdom and piety. I cannot find in these 
things the revolting and hideous tendencies, such as some 
searchers appear to exhume. Paul, I am sure, did not. 

But Paul's spirit was stirred within him ! Ah, well 
might that lofty soul be aroused if it understood Athens 
as I believe he did ! It was all given to idolatry ! It 
seemed to be a failure. Idolatry is a love of the creature 
without recognition of the Creator. People may make 
an idol of a child, but it is impossible to love a child too 
much. In fact, true worship of the Giver leads us to 
love his gifts the more. To love God, one must appreci- 
ate His mercy and kindness. But, alas ! the Athenians 
did not recognize the Giver of every perfect gift. 

Paul would not have had the Athenians entertain a 
less degree of respect for learning. There is no antago- 
nism between Christianity and learning. He would not 
have taken away their statues or their temple. He 
inveighed not against their literature their science, or 
their philosophy. No Christian could wish a people to 
love art or science less. But, alas ! they did not look 
beyond these to the great Creator and Ruler. 

Paul must have felt that same bitter sens* of disap- 
pointment which comes to the racer who almost wins, 
but loses. The Grecian religion and teaching was so 
near to God that it seemed such a great pity that the 
next step should not be taken. If it had been so low 
and vile, and all this learning so dishonorable, Paul could 
not have felt so disappointed. When we run to the train, 
and just miss getting on board; when a man of unques- 
tioned honor makes one slip; when we clasp at the brooch, 
and touch it as it descends in the waves ; when the victory 



67 



ATA THENS AL ONE. 

is almost ours ; when we can see the shore, but cannot 
reach it, — how much more stinging is the pain than when 
these have always been beyond our hope ! 

There was Athens, gorgeously beautiful, wise and 
talented, almost the Lord's, but lost. 

As the Christian teacher feels when he has seen the 
tear of repentance in the sinner's eye, and has heard him 
declare his determination to turn to God, and then has 
seen him go away— almost saved, but lost, — so Paul 
felt when he looked on great Athens. 

A face may be surpassingly beautiful, but without a 
pure soul within it, the features are the more sug- 
gestive of sadness and woe the more chaste they out- 
wardly appear. 

To be as rigidly moral as the Grecian philosophers 
because it is the best policy, is to come near the mark and 
fail. Paul! Paul! thou lover of thy kind and of God! Oh^ 
how thou must have yearned to put the spirit of God 
into this philosophy, into this science, into this mythol- 
ogy ! Oh, to take these talented men out of the list of 
human statues, and put a spirit in them that should make 
them really living men and sons of God ! Many a poor 
disciple since Paul's day has honored learning and 
admired art, science and philosophy, and yet has felt what 
a sham become all this college learning and cultivation of 
head and hand, and what a sad failure is any scholarship 
without God behind it and in it. The saddest wreck on 
any shore is the hulk that was laden with the most valu- 
able souls and the most precious merchandise ; so the 
saddest sight to a lover of God and humanity is the man of 
learning and talent who is lost from God. Such was 
the wise and fascinating Athens to the apostle Paul, at 
the time when he thought it good to be left to view its 
scenes alone. 

68 



Acquaintance with God. 



*' They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.^' — 

Psalm 8g : ij. 



Did you ever enter the thronged street of a strange 
city, and, among the thousands of faces, see not one 
famiHar countenance? Did you feel the truth of the old 
saying, that ** we are never so much alone as in a crowded 
city " ? Beautiful figures and faces of surpassing beauty 
pass you by with the coldness of moving statues. Frank 
faces of enterprising men pass in haste, but they have the 
coldest glances for you. Like Coleridge's mariner, with 
" water, water all around, and not a drop to drink,'* so 
about you is a flood of love, friendship, joy and life, but 
not a drop for you. The fairer the forms and faces, the 
more sad your heart that they care not for you. 

" If she be not so to me, 
What care I how fair she be ? " 

Every one seems to have friends and joys — all save 
you. A stranger, an orphan, a useless stumbling-block ; 



69 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD. 

a bare, battered and valueless hulk, tossed from side to 
side by cold and relentless waves of humanity ! You are 
in the world, but not of it. O chilling life ! O use- 
less man ! O friendless woman ! You hurl back at 
Cowper his soliloquy : 

" O solitude, where are the charms 
That sages have seen in thy face ? 
Better dwell in the midst of alarms 
Than reign in this horrible place ! " 

Oh ! far, far better a desert island than all this bound- 
less life in which you can have no part. 

Such is the situation in which the man without God 
finds himself in this world of teeming life. Surrounded 
by unspeakable glories, he sees them not ; or should he 
see them, they have no smile for him. In a world crowded 
with joy, overflowing with happiness, and founded in con- 
tentment, he is a stranger, and miserable. In a life where 
the great heart of the Mighty Father sends throbs of 
purest love to all who are acquainted with him, the god- 
less man exists in coldness and loveless gloom. 

Did you ever go back to your native city, after years 
of absence, and start down the crowded thoroughfare ? 
Was nearly every face familiar ? Did old friends throng 
about you ? Did they clasp your hand, kiss your cheeky 
look love from beautiful eyes, and utter hearty welcomes 
from tongues that speak no guile ? Was every stone in 
the highway, every tree by the walk, and every old 
house, as familiar and dear as of old? 

Oh, then, my brother, my sister, the world was 
beautiful to you ! Life throbbed with the pulsations of 
love. You were not a stranger, not alone. 

So the people that hear the joyful sound, and those 



70 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD, 

who walk in the light of God's countenance, are blessed 
inasmuch as they find themselves in a world of love and 
beauty, in which they are unrestricted sharers. 

O my young friends, have you learned of God ? 
Do you know him ? Do you hear the joyful sound of 
a Father's voice in all the tones of nature ? Do you feel 
the touch of holy lips, as God kisses you again and 
again ? Does an innumerable company of angels sur- 
round you, and guard your footsteps lest you dash them 
against a stone. Is there love all about you ? Is it 
yours ? 

Then you cannot be a stranger in the world. God 
is in the world. All things are His. The earth is God's 
dwelling-place. Wherever you go, you are at home. 
You cannot be a stranger. 

Going through life without a knowledge of God is 
like traveling through Europe or Asia without a knowledge 
of history. Of this I promised to speak to you, and 
most appropriately it illustrates my theme. 

Visitors to England may go as I went when but an 
overgrown boy, and travel over its battle-fields, climb its 
towers, enter the gates of its castles, and step on the soft 
carpets of its palaces, and wonder why they were pre- 
served, and who lived or died in them in the indefinite 
long ago. All the charm they had was in the wealth or 
glitter of the present monuments, or the puzzles of 
curious workmanship. 

But when years of study opened the pages of his- 
tory and quickened the imagination, then the sight of 
an ancient bulwark opened the whole past to the eager 
mind. The kings who fell on those battle-fields, the 
armies that shattered each other, the lords who ruled 
the manors and castles, and the ladies and squires who 



71 



A CQ UAINTANCE WITH G OD. 

inhabited these velvet palace halls in days long gone, 
come back in romantic scenes of intense interest. The 
tourist who sees only the stone and mortar of Holyrood 
is a stranger and a dullard. 

Men often visit Warwick Castle, and see but massive 
walls and unintelligible relics. Often they ride out to 
Kenilworth, and wonder why scholars should care to 
visit its moss and ivy covered ruins. 

But to the lover of history and the reader of historic 
romance, the scenes the outward eye cannot see are the 
only matters of interest. To them the castles stand 
entire as of old. The warriors, earls and lovely ladies 
move before him in the chase, in the tournament, in the 
banquet hall, and in the fearful siege. It is not a strange 
place to such a visitor. It is full of familiar but exciting 
associations. 

So the man who looks through nature and sees 
nature's God, has visions of the beautiful, the lovely and 
the good, which the undevout can never see or understand. 

I remember visiting the battle-field of Waterloo, 
about which I had a vague idea of localities, and walking 
alone for a whole day. I returned to Brussels about as 
ignorant as I went. But the next day I started again 
with a guide who knew all its history and all the inter- 
esting localities. He told the story with a fascinating 
earnestness, and with a wonderful display of descriptive 
power. Under the sw^ay of his teaching I could see the 
gathering armies. I could hear the roar of cannon, the 
crash of musketry, the rolling smoke, and the shouts of 
charging squadrons. I could see the hastening columns, 
the glittering bayonets, the flying cavalry, the line of 
battle, and the confusion of defeat. I could see Napoleon 
in his excitement, and hatless Ney leading his forlorn 



72 



A CQ UAINTANCE WITH G OD. 

hope ; with marvelous changes, scenes of charge and 
counter-charge, defeat and counter-defeat, the oncoming 
of the EngHsh and the decisive advance of the German 
reinforcements — all like living forms seemed fighting 
again as hotly and deadly as before. Oh ! I could 
almost feel the tremor of the earth under the pressure of 
cannon-wheels and flying battalions. Oh ! there was 
then much to the field of Waterloo besides fields and 
farm-houses and monuments. 

But a better illustration of the inspiration and satis- 
faction there is in having an acquaintance with God, is 
found by the traveler in Palestine, — that land where, for 
the greater portion of the year, there is but little, aside 
from the associations, to interest the visitor. To the 
mere tourist who is compelled to visit it out of season, 
there seems nothing but heat and vermin, superstition 
and falsehood, robbers and beggars. 

Even sacred old Jerusalem is a dirty, ragged abode 
of filth and offensive odors. Neither landscape nor 
architecture, man or beast, has anything attractive in 
picturesque form or works of skill. 

" The mountains round Jerusalem 

The same forever stand, 
But clouds that rest on them 

O'ershadow sea and land. 
No sail is seen on Galilee, 

No harp in Judah's hall ; 
The city, once so brave and free, 

The scimetar appalls." 

But oh ! it matters not what heat oppresses you ; 
it is of no account that you meet disgusting beggars in 
•every dirty street, who consort with rats and dogs, — you 
feel not the loss of almost every civilized comfort, if, 



73 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD. 

looking through the present with the aid of Bible light, 
you see Christ in history. How hot it was that autumn 
night, when, with a wise and kind old monk, we walked 
forth from Jerusalem, and around to the Garden of Geth- 
semane ! How annoying the wretched beggars had been 
all day ! The food was badly served, the water was from 
stagnant pools, the fields were dead, and a withering blight 
was over all. Jerusalem seemed like a pile of rubbish, 
and like anything but a Holy City. 

But even now, as memory calls back the events of 
that night, I can see those gorgeous reproductions of the 
past, which that evening rolled in panoramic gleams 
before my delighted soul. Under the old olive-tree 
of Gethsemane, where Jesus sat, and where he so bit- 
terly prayed for comfort, with the old monk pointing out 
the points of sacred history, I forgot the present, and all 
its poverty and woe. 

The modern Jerusalem faded away, the beggars 
were withdrawn, the heat was unfelt, and with the vivid- 
ness of life the old Jerusalem returned. There were 
the massive walls with towering battlements ; there the 
glittering domes, the strong castles, the grand palaces. 
Here were the fields of grain, here the olive orchard. 
There the Kedron stream. There the flowering plants, 
and there the arches of mighty aqueducts. 

Then caravans of Pilgrims came and went. Jew and 
Gentile, merchant and Pharisee, Roman soldiers and Greek 
adventurers, passed along the path of the Mount of 
Olives. Then came down the rocky path from Jerusa- 
lem, the disciples of Jesus after the Last Supper. I could 
see them at the brookside excitedly conversing. I could see 
Him, as with His dearest friends He left the crowd of fol- 
lowers and modestly drew away under the trees. The 



74 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD. 

same moon looked on Him then which made the shadows 
now. I could see Him kneeling and the disciples sleep- 
ing. Oh that bitter cup ! would it not pass from Him ? 
I saw Him go to the arbor, and call to James, to Peter, 
to John, seeing them sleeping. 

I saw Him return to pray. The moon gleamed on 
His white robe. The Kedron glittered beyond Him like 
diamonds. When, lo ! an angel, beautiful angel of God, 
appears. Its sweet face glows with immortal love. It 
softly raises Him up ! It seems to speak ! They walk 
away together beyond the vines. 

But startling lights glitter at the great gate of the 
city. I see the mob with the priests, the hastening 
crowd at the entrance of the garden. I hear a tender 
voice by me, saying : " Watch and pray, lest ye enter 
into temptation." I see the rabble rush into the garden. 
I see the betrayal kiss. I see them seize Him and 
roughly hurry Him away 

The hours seem to pass quickly. Morning's gray 
light appears. Then the advancing day. Look beyond 
the walls, over where the Roman soldiers gather. See ! 
three crosses ! Yes, it is He. How could He die when 
angels serve ? Then see the gathering clouds ; notice 
the approaching darkness ; feel the fluttering, sickening 
roll of the earthquake's shock. " Truly this is the Son 
of God." 

Such scenes, indescribably grand, arise on all the 
sacred spots of that now cursed and dangerous country. 
Whoso travels there with no acquaintance with God's 
Word has a perilous and uncomfortable journey and a 
profitless experience. 

The most strikingly interesting experience in all 
those wanderings as a traveling correspondent, and one 



75 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD. 

which this thought of to-day brings back with marvel- 
ous clearness, we found in the region of man's earliest 
life, in Asia. 

I feel again the heat of the Arabian desert. The long 
trail of the caravan leads to the East! After long, long 
days of weary dragging on, we reach a river. On again 
into the wilderness, and the river again appears. How hot 
was the atmosphere ! How burned the plain ! How 
barren the hills beyond ! 

What came ye forth for to see ? Verily, a reed shaken 
by the wind ! Tired travelers too weary to eat, too dis- 
appointed to talk. 

Disgusted with self and all the guides, I walked away 
to the hills. Exhausted with a little effort at climbing, I 
sat down on one of those huge mounds, or hills, and with 
awful homesickness wished myself anywhere but in that 
valley. Verily nothing to be seen to repay all that priva- 
tion and suffering we had undergone. Often the wander- 
ing Christian soul, seeing only the present and the worldly 
surface, feels thus discouraged and sad. But just then 
it often is, that God brings before his child the most 
delightful of all his views of the Golden Land. 

I was just weary enough, just sad enough, just lonely 
enough, to quicken every impulse of my imagination. I 
leaned my tired head on my hands to rest ; my eyes 
were closed. But on that strange, ancient ruin, with 
antique brick, cement and pottery lying around me, with 
the dull, sluggish river flowing in the distance, I had a 
vision ! It was no miraculous visitation, but a vision 
created by the associations and my childhood memories 
of Bible lessons. Often I am compelled to stop, to be 
sure it was a phantom, and not real. 

Before me, covering the broad plain, lay a magnifi- 



76 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD, 

cent city. Its mighty walls, with massive towers, reared 
their forms toward the skies. On each side of the 
mighty square were twenty-four brazen gates. On its 
wide walls two chariots could ride abreast. Through 
the city, under lofty arches of mighty masonry, ran the 
great" river. Without the city walls were canals, gardens, 
grain-fields, hamlets, villages, and away to the north the 
mountain range. Orchards and groves dotted the plain. 
I walked along the shaded path to a lofty gateway, 
and entered with the hastening, busy crowd. The 
mighty gate of brass creaked, and with an echoing 
thunder-clap closed behind us. I clambered up the 
great stairway, from story to story, until I stood on the 
top of that high wall. Away toward the setting sun the 
fertile plain was carpeted with ripening grain. There 
was the sound of reapers' songs and the hum of lowing 
cattle. 

The sun sank from sight, and darkness drew down 
upon the valley. I turned toward the city, and looked 
down into the wide street. Multitudes hastened hither 
and thither along the pavements ; torches flashed and 
armor gleamed. 

The hours passed, until the din of chariots and 
multitudes began to die away, when a strange sound 
attracted my attention. It was strangely shrill and pierc- 
ing ; yet it was a human voice. Far away, beyond the 
shady bowers of the hanging gardens, it echoed among 
the palace towers and temple pillars. But as I listened 
it came nearer ; square by square it drew near, uttering, 
at regular intervals, that strange cry. At last a shadowy 
form of a man appeared upon the wall. He held in his 
hand a long trumpet. As he hastily approached he held 
it to his lips, and shouted out upon the city : ** Come to 



77 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD, 

the feast ! Come to the feast ! The king commands it ! 
Come to the feast to be held in the temple of Belus 
this night ! " 

On and on he passed until his voice was lost amid 
th2 distant towers. 

Down the stairway I hastened to the wide street. 
A crowd was rushing along toward the river gate, 
officers, soldiers, queens and matrons hastening eagerly 
on toward the temple. As we pass the great square the 
crowd is stopped by a cry that the " Mountaineers are 
coming ! Their army can be seen from the walls, burn- 
ing the fields of grain ! " But the officers laughed at the 
cry, and calmed the fears of the multitude with assur- 
ances that the city could not be captured, and was pro- 
visioned for seven years. There was a sound of rushing 
incoming fugitives at the gateways as we passed them in 
our hurry toward the temple. 

Before me a grand archway gave forth a flood of 
light. Into the archway I turned with the crowd. There 
before me, stretching away so far, was a large hall. From 
the central arch, and between the glittering rows of pil- 
lars hung gorgeous chandeliers of gold and pearls, and 
archway after archway seemed to be brilliantly lighted 
away in the distance. Down this central arch of the 
temple was set a low table on which was placed the fruits 
of Bactriana and the richest wines of Shinar. Beside 
that table were long couches on which the guests could 
lie or sit at pleasure ; while at the farther end, under a 
portal that gleamed with costly gems, was placed the 
throne of the king and queen. 

I saw the gathering multitude as they took their 
places down that long table. I saw the king and the 
queen as they entered by a side gateway of the temple, 



78 



A CQ UAINTANCE WITH G OD. 

and took their places at the head of that table. I saw 
the king wave his wand. I saw the captive Jews who 
waited on that feast, as they drew near and served the 
confections, then the fruit, then the wine. Leaning 
against a lofty and massive pillar I watched the feast as the 
hours flew on. The guests drank long and deep the rich 
wine. They chatted, they laughed, and, becoming more 
and more drunken, they shouted and sang. They began 
to arise to their feet and to dance. Back and forth into 
the shadows, back into the light, around the pillars, 
wildly they ran and leaped, tottered and screamed, while 
the rude reed music gave the din a terrible cadence. 
Maidens, matrons, ladies, soldiers, dukes, queens, en- 
slaved kings, all in weird pandemonium, made the temple 
tremble with their drunken revels. 

Suddenly the drunken king arises at his throne, 
and with thick tongue calls out : " Bring out the vessels 
of gold ! Bring out the golden cups we captured at Jeru- 
salem ! These cups are too small for throats like ours. 
Bring forth the vessels of gold ! " 

The captive Jews started back aghast. "What? 
Bring forth the vessels of gold they captured in God's 
holy Temple ! It cannot be." 

" Go ! " shouts the angry king — " go ! or by the gods 
ye die ! " Then, with trembling step and elevated eye, 
the Jews enter that distant niche where lay the golden 
spoils of Jerusalem. One by one come forth those holy 
vessels, once dedicated to the great God of heaven. One 
by one they place the cups and vases down that table, 
until not one of all that host remains unsupplied with a 
vessel of gold, and a deep draught of stinging wine. 

" Now," said the king, " drink to the dregs. Drink 
to our god, and curse the God of the Jewish prophet." 



79 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD. 

With a laugh and a leer he raised his cup. All the 
regathered company seized their wine-bowls and lifted 
them quickly to their lips. I thought they would drain 
them all, and shout again in drunken sport. But no * 
A strange shock or spell seizes the whole multitude. 
Sudden as the lightning's flash, a glitter of flickering 
lights appears all through the temple. Strange sensations 
run through every frame. The golden bowls fall in a 
crash on table and pavement. The wine runs in rivers 
down the mosaic-wrought entrance. Look ! Look there I 
Just over the head of the king. See — ^that hand of fire I 
It writes, writes in the solid masonry, "Mene! Mene! 
Tekel! Upharsin!" Then, like the flash with which it 
came, it is gone. But the words are there — words of fire,, 
gleaming with dazzling power : " Mene ! Mene ! Tekel ! 
Upharsin ! " All the host fall on their faces, and hushed 
groans of fright escape from all. But the king recovers 
himself first. It was that self-command which made him 
king. He sends for the astrologers. I see them enter 
with their strange rolls and signs. I see them before the 
king. I hear him ask for an interpretation of these strange 
words. I hear them conferring with the sacred number 
seven. I hear them ask for the situation of the seven 
stars at that hour. But no, no. A greater god than 
astrologists worship had been there. I saw them hasten 
solemnly out, and go up the winding way that led to the 
top of Babel's Tower. But the queen — she sends out by 
the river arch, and soon I see her messenger return with 
a short, thick, gray-haired Jew — not gray with age — and 
I see him as the queen points upward at these gleaming 
words. Then I hear him say, "Mene! Mene! Tekel! 
Upharsin ! Weighed ! Divided ! Numbered ! " Then, after 
a moment's study, he exclaims : " O king, a greater god 



80 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD, 

than yours has been here this night. O king, you are 
weighed in God's balance and found wanting. Your 
kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians 
without the walls ! " Hardly had the prophet's voice 
ceased to echo along the arches, when a messenger 
shouted into a side arch, '' The Medes have come! The 
Medes have come! A drunken sentry has let them in 
from the river's dry bed. They have taken the cityj 
Babylon is fallen ! " Then that multitude leaped to their 
feet. Through the archways, the windows, the niches 
and gateways they fled, and sounds of rushing chariots, 
screams and shouts without, confirmed the messenger's 
cry. The next morning, as the sun arose beyond the 
mountain, it looked down through a cloud of smoke and 
ashes on that once wealthy and beautiful city of Babylon. 
Such scenes as these, which I can only so inadequately 
describe, ever repay the traveller for all his hardship and 
trial, if he can get the inside acquaintance with the his- 
tory of the localities he visits. So it is with our acquaint- 
ance with God. The journey of life may be hard, want 
and weariness may come, and all the landscapes of our 
religious life look bleak or drear. But when we can turn 
inward to the spirit, back of it all and in it all, then 
wonderful experiences and heavenly visions reward our 
journey. Let earth be what it may, the best things are 
not seen on the surface. Let life be as rude and painful 
as it may, the spirit can rejoice in God and rove in his 
free spirit. Blessed are the people who hear the joyful 
sound. They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy 
countenance. 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS. 



A Lecture by Russell H. Conwell, in the Amphithe- 
atre, Chautauqua, N. Y., Tuesday, August 3, 1886. 



My Dear Friends : I assure you that I esteem it no little 
honor to be called once more to this platform where so many 
of the most distinguished men and women of the world have 
•stood. The acres of diamonds of which I piopose to speak 
to-day are to be found in your homes, or near to them, and 
not in some distant land. T cannot better introduce my 
thought than by the relation of a little incident thai occurred 
to a party of American travelers beyond the Euphrates river. 
We passed across the great Arabian desert, coming out at 
Bagdad, passed down the river to the Arabian gulf, and on 
our way down we hired an Arabian guide to show us all the 
wonderful things connected with the ancient history and 
scenery ; and that guide was very much like the barbers 
which men find in this country to-day, that is, he thought it 
was not only his duty to guide us, but also to entertain us 
with stories both curious and weird, and ancient and modern, 
many of which I have forgotten, and I am glad I have^ l^ut 
there is one I remember to-day : The old guide led the camei 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS. 

along by his halter, telling various stories, and once he took 
his Turkish cap from his head and swung it high in the air to 
give me to understand that he had something especially im- 
portant to communicate, and then he told me this beautiful 
story : 

There once lived on the banks of the Indus river an 
ancient Persian by the name of Al Hafed, He owned a lovely 
cottage on a magnificent hill, from which he could look down 
upon Che glittering river and the glorious sea ; he had wealth 
in r.bundance, fields, grain, orchards, money at interest, a 
beautiful wife and lovely children, and he was contented. 
Contented because he was wealthy, and wealthy because he 
was contented. And one day there visited this Al Hafed an 
ancient priest, and that priest sat down before the fire and 
told him how diamonds were made, and said the old priest, 
** If you had a diamond the size of your thumb you could 
purchase a dozen farms like this, and if you had a handful 
you could purchase the whole county." Al Hafed was at 
once a poor man ; he had not lost anything, he was poor 
because he was discontented, and he was discontented be- 
cause he thought he was poor. He said : *' I want a mine of 
diamonds ; what is the use of farming a little place like this ? 
I want a mine and I will have it." He could hardly sleep 
that night, and early in the morning he went and wakened 
the priest, and said • "I want you to tell me where you can 
find diamonds." Said the old priest: *• If you want dia- 
monds, go and get them." 

''Won't you please tell me where I can find them?" 

** Well, if you go and find high mountains, with a deep 
river running between them, over white sand, in this white 
sand you will find diamonds. " 



48 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS, 

"Well," said he, '' I will go." 

So he sold his farm, collected his money, and went to hunt 
for diamonds. He began, very properly, with the Mountains 
of the Moon, and came down through Egypt and Palestine. 
Years passed. He came over through Europe, and, at last, 
in rags and hunger he stood a pauper on the shores of the 
great Bay of Barcelona, and when that great tidal wave came 
rolling in through the Pillars of Hercules he threw himself 
into the incoming tide, and sank beneath its foaming crest 
never again to rise in this life. 

Here the guide stopped to fix some dislocated baggage, 
and I said to myself, *'What does he mean by telling me this 
story J It was the first story I ever read in which the hero was 
killed in the first chapter." But he went on : •' The man 
who purchased Al Hafed's farm led his camel one day out to 
the stream in the garden to drink. As the camel buried his 
nose in the water the man noticed a flash of light from the 
white sand, and reached down and picked up a black stone 
with a strange eye of light in it which seemed to reflect all 
the hues of the rainbow. He said, ''It's a wonderful thing," 
and took it in his house where he put it on his mantel and 
forgot all about it. A few days afterwards the same old priest 
came to visit Al Hafed's successor. He noticed a flash of 
light from the mantel, and taking up the stone, exclaimed : 

*' Here is a diamon^ ! Has Al Hefed returned ! !'* 

*' Oh, no, that is not a diamond, that is nothing but a 
stone that we found out the garden." 

*'But," said the priest, '*that is a diamond!" and to- 
gether they rushed out into the garden, and stirred up the 
white sands with their fingers, and there came up other more 
beautiful gems, and more valuable than the first. And that 



85 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS. 

was the guide's story. And it is, in the main, historically 
true. Thus were discovered the wonderful mines of Gol- 
conda. Again the guide swung his cap, and said : " Had 
Al Hafed remained at home and dug in his own cellar or 
garden, or under his own wheat fields, he would have found 
Acres of Diamonds." And this discovery was the founding 
of the line of the Great Moguls, whose magnificent palaces 
are still the astonishment of all travelers. He did not need 
to add the moral. But that I may teach by illustration, I 
want to tell you the story that I then told him ; 

We were sort of exchanging works ; he would tell me a 
story and 1 would tell him one, and so I told him about the man 
m California, living on his ranch there, who read of the dis- 
covery of gold in the southern part of the State. He became 
dissatisfied and sold his ranch and started for new fields in 
search of gold. His successor. Colonel Sutter, put a mill 
on the little stream below the house, and one day when the 
water was shut off his little girl went down to gather some of 
the white sand in the race way; and she brought some of it 
in the house to dry it. And while she was sifting it through 
her fingers, a gentleman, a visitor there, noticed the first 
shining sands of gold ever discovered in Upper California. 
That farm that the owner sold to go somewhere else to find 
gold has added eighteen millions of dollars to the circulating 
medium of the world ; and they told me there sixteen years 
ago that the owner of one-third of the farm received a 
twenty-dollar gold piece for every fifteen minutes of his life. 

That reminds me of what Professor Agassiz told his sum- 
mer class in mineralogy in reference to Pennsylvania. I live 
in Pennsylvania, but, being a Yankee, I enjoy telling this 
story. This man owned a farm, and he did just what I would 
do if I owned a farm in that State — sold it. Before he sold 



86 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS, 

it he concluded that he would go to Canada to collect coal 
oil. The professors will tell you that this stuff was first found 
in connection with living springs, floating on the water. This 
man wrote to his cousin in Canada, asking for employment 
collecting this oil. The cousin wrote back that he did not 
understand the work. The farmer then studied all the 
books on coal oil and when he knew all about it, and the 
theories of the geologists concerning it from the formation 
of primitive coal beds to the present day, he removed to 
Canada to work for his cousin, first selling his Pennsylvania 
farm for eight hundred and thirty-three dollars. The old 
farmer who purchased his estate, went back of the barn one 
day to fix a place for the horses to drink, and found that the 
previous owner had already arranged that matter. He had 
fixed some plank edgewise, running from one bank towards 
the other, and resting edgewise a few inches into the water, 
the purpose being to throw over to one side a dreadful look- 
ing scum that the cattle would not put their noses in, although 
they would drink the water below it. That man had been 
damming back for twenty-one years, the substance ; the dis- 
covery of which the official geologist pronounced to be worth 
to the State the sum of a hundred millions of dollars. Yet 
that man had sold his farm for eight hundred and thirty- 
three dollars. He sold one of the best oil-producing farms 
and went somewhere else to find — nothing. 

That story brought to my mind the incident of the young 
man in Massachusetts. There was a young man in college 
studying mining and mineralogy, and while he was a student 
they employed him for a time as a tutor and paid him fifteen 
dollars a week for the special work. When he graduated 
they offered him a professorship and forty-five dollars a week. 
When this offer came, he went home and said to his mother. 



87 



A CRES OF DM MONDS, 

*' Mother, I know too much to work for forty-five dollars 
a week ; let us go out to California, and I will stake out gold 
mines and copper and silver mines, and we will be rich." 

His mother said it was better to stay there. But as he was 
an only son he had his way, and they sold out and started. 
But they only went to Wisconsin, where he went into the 
employ of the Superior Copper Mining Company, at a 
salary of fifteen dollars a week. He had scarcely left the 
old estate before the farmer who had bought it was digging 
potatoes and bringing them through the yard in a large basket. 
The farms there are almost all stone wall, and the gate was 
narrow, and as he was working his basket through, pulling 
first one side then the other, he noticed in that stone wall a 
block of native silver about eight inches square. This pro- 
fessor of mining and mineralogy was born on that place, and 
when he sold out he sat on that very stone while he was 
making the bargain. He had passed it again and again. He 
had rubbed it with his sleeve until it had reflected his counte- 
nance and said : '* Come, now, here is a hundred thousand 
dollars for digging — dig me." 

I should enjoy exceedingly telling these stories, but I am 
not here to relate incidents so much as to bring lessons that 
may be helpful to you. I love to laugh at the mistakes of 
these men until the thought comes to me, '' How do you 
know v/hat that man in Wisconsin is doing — and that man 
in Canada?" It maybe that he sits by his hearth to-day 
and shakes his sides and laughs at us for making the same 
mistakes and feels that after all he is in comparatively good 
company. We have all made the same mistakes. Is there 
anyone here that has not ? If there is one that says you have 
never made such a blunder, I can argue with you that you 
have. You may not have had the acres of diamonds and sold 



88 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS, 

them. You may not have had wells of oil and sold them, 
•and yet you may have done so. A teacher in the Wilkesbarre 
schools came to me after one of my lectures and told me that 
he owned a farm of fifty acres, that he sold for five dollars 
an acre, and a few weeks before my lecture it was sold 
for thirty-eight thousand dollars, because they had found a 
silver mine on it. 

You say you never have made any such mistakes. Are you 
rich to-day? Are you worth five million dollars? Of course 
not! 

Why not? *'I never had opportunity to get it." 

Now you and I can talk. Let us see ! 

Were you ever in the mercantile business ? Why didn't 
you get rich? ''Because I couldn't, there was so much 
competition and all that." Now my friend, didn't you carry 
on your store just as I carried on my father's store? I don't 
like to tell how I conducted my father's store. But when he 
went away to purchase goods he would sometimes leave me 
in charge ; and a man would come in and say : Do you keep 
jacknives? *'No, we don't keep jacknives." Then another 
would come in and ask : ''Do you keep jacknives?" "No, 
we don't." !! And still another. "No, we don't keep jack- 
nives ; why are you all bothering me about jacknives ! !!" 

Did you keep store in that way ? Do you ask me what 
was the fault ? The difficulty was that I never had learned 
by bitter experience the foundations of business success; and 
that it is the same foundation that underlies all true success, 
the foundation that underlies Christianity and morality. 
That it is the whole of man's life to live for others ; and he 
that can do the most to elevate, enrich and inspire others, 
shall reap the greatest reward himself. Not only so says the 



89 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS, 

Holy Book,, but so says business common sense. I will go 
into your store and ask : Do you know neighbor A. that 
lives over a couple of squares from your store? "Yes, he 
deals here." Where did he come from? *'I don't know." 
Has he any children? **I don't know." Does he have a 
school in his district? Does he go to church? **I don't 
know." Is he a married man? '*I don't know." What 
ticket does he vote ? "I don't know, and I don't care!" 
Is that the way you do business ? If it is then you have been 
conducting your business as I carried on my father's store ! 
And you do not succeed and are poor ? I understand it. 
You can't succeed and I am glad of it, and I will give five 
dollars to see your failure announced in the newspaper to- 
morrow morning. The only way to succeed is to take an 
interest in the people around you, and honestly work for 
their welfare. 

*'But,'* you say, '*I have no capital." I am glad you 
haven't. I am sorry for the rich men's sons. Young man, 
if you have no capital, there is hope for you. According to 
the statistics collected in the city of Boston twenty years ago, 
ninety-six of every one hundred successful merchants were 
born poor ; and trustworthy statistics also show, that of the 
rich men's sons not one in a thousand dies rich. I am sorry 
for the rich men's sons unless their fathers be wise enough to 
bring them up like poor children. If you haven't any capital, 
life is full of hope to you. 

A. T. Stewart started out with a dollar and a half to begin 
on and he lost all but sixty-two and a half cents the first 
afternoon. That was before he was a school teacher. He 
purchased things the people did not want. He said **I will 
never do that again," and he went around to the doors and 
found what the people wanted and invested his sixty-two and 



90 






ACRES OI' DIAMONDS, 

a half cents safely for he knew what people wanted, and went 
on until he was worth forty-two millions of dollars; and what 
man has done men can do again. You may say: ''I can't be 
acquainted with every man in the county and know his wife 
and children in order to succeed." If you know a few fairly 
well you may judge the world by them. John Jacob Astor is 
said by one of his latest biographers to have had a mortgage 
on a millinery establishment. I always think when I reach 
this point that the ladies will say : 

''Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." 

They could not pay the interest on the mortgage an(^ he 
foreclosed and took possession. He went into partnership 
with the same man who failed and kept the old clerks and 
retained the old stock. He went out and set down on a 
bench in Union Park. What was he doing there ? He was 
watching the women as they passed by, and when he saw a 
lady with her shoulders thrown back, and her head up as if 
she didn't care if all the world was looking at her, he studied 
that bonnet and before it was out of sight he knew every 
feather and ribbon and all about the frame, and — and — some 
men may be able to describe a bonnet, but I cannot. I don*t 
believe there are words in the English language to do it. 
Then he went to the store and said : 

**Put such and such a bonnet in the window for I know that 
there is one woman that likes it." 

And then he would go and watch for another style and 
return and have that put in the window with the other. And 
success came. Some years ago I went into that store to find 
out about it for myself, and there I found the descendents of 
that man doing business, and it is the largest millinery firm 
in the world, with branch houses in all the large cities on the 



91 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS, 

globe. That success was made because Astor studied into 
the matter and knew what the women wanted before he had 
the articles made. 

But you say, ''I cannot do it." You can do it. You say 
you have no capital — but you have a jacknife. I could not 
sleep if I did not have a jacknife in my pocket — a Yankee 
cannot. In Massachusetts, there lived a man who was a car- 
penter, and who was out of work. He sat around the stove 
until his wife told him to go out doors, and he did^ — every 
man in Massachusetts is compelled by law to obey his wife. 
He sat down on the shore of the bay and whittled a soaked 
oak shingle, until he made a chain that his children quarreled 
over. Then he whittled another. 

Then a neighbor, coming in, advised him to whittle toys, 
for sale. ** I can't make toys," said he. '^ Yes, you can." 
*'But I wouldn't know what to make?" There is the whole 
thing ; not in having the machinery or the capital, but in 
knowing what the people want ; and so his friend said to the 
carpenter: '^ Why don't you ask your own children? See 
what they like, and perhaps other children will like the same 
thing." He concluded to do so; and, when his little girl 
came down, he said : '^ Mary, what kind of a toy would you 
like to have me make?" ^' Oh, a little doll cradle, and 
carriage, and horse," and a dozen other things. He began 
with his jacknife and made up these rough, unpainted toys. 
A friend of his sold them in a Boston shoe store at first, and 
brought back twenty-five and fifty cents at a time, and then 
his wife began to be better natured. The wife always does 
get better natured when there is a prospect of money to 
divide. She came out and split up the wood while he made 
up the toys. The last case I had as a lawyer before I entered 
the ministry that man was on the stand, and I said to him : 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS, 

**When did you commence to whittle those toys?" **In 
1870." *' How much are the patents on those toys worth?" 
His answer was, their actual value, to him, was ;^78,ooo; 
and it was a little less than seven years after the time when 
he began with his jacknife; and to-day I know that he is 
worth a hundred thousand dollars, and he has received it all 
from having consulted his own children, and judging from 
them what other people's children wanted, and trying to 
supply the demand. If a man takes an interest in people, 
and knows what they need, and endeavors to supply it, he 
must succeed. 

Some of you who sit before me, thinking you are poor, 
are actually in possession of wealth. Like the Baltimore 
lady, who, fourteen years after her father's failure, found a 
costly diamond bracelet she had lost seventeen years before. 

Many of you smile at the thought that you are in the actual 
possession of wealth. A shoemaker in Massachusetts sat 
around in the house until his wife drove him out with a 
broom, and then he went out into the back yard and sat 
down on an ash barrel. Near by was a beautiful mountain 
stream, but I don't suppose that he thought of Tennyson's 
beautiful poem — 

" Chatter, chatter, as 1 flow. 
To join the brimming river; 
Men may come, and men may go, 
But I go on forever.' 

It was not a poetical situation, sitting on an ash barrel and 
his wife in the kitchen with a mop. Then he saw a trout 
flash in the stream and hide under the bank, and he reached 
down and got the fish, and took it into the house ; and his 
wife took it, and sent it to a friend in Worcester. The 
friend wrote back that he would give five dollars for another 



93 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS. 

such a trout, and our shoemaker and his wife immediately 
started out to find it, man and wife now perfectly united. 
A five-dollar bill in prospect. They went up the stream to 
its source, and followed it down to the brimming river, but 
there was not another trout to be found. Then he went to 
the minister. That minister didn't know how trout grew, 
but he told them to go to the public library, and, under a 
pile of dime novels, he would find Seth Green's book, 
and that would give them the information they wanted. 
They did so, and tound out all about the culture of trout, 
and began operations. They afterwards moved to the 
banks of the Connecticut river, and then to the Hudson, 
and now that man sends trout, fresh and packed in ice, all 
over the country, and is a rich man. His wealth was in that 
back yard just as much twenty years before. But he did not 
discover it until his repeated failures had made his wife 
imperious. 

I remember meeting, in Western Pennsylvania, a distin- 
guished professor who began as a country school teacher. He 
was determined to know his district, and he learned that the 
father of one of the boys was a maker of wagon wheels. He 
studied up all about making wagon wheels, and when that 
man's boy came to school he told him all about it; and the 
boy went home and told his father: '*! know more about 
wagon wheels than you do!" "That teacher is teaching 
that boy wonderfully," said the father. He told a farmer s 
boy all about the value of fertilizer for the soil, and he went 
home and told his father, and the old gentleman said : 
"How that boy -is learning." That teacher is now the 
president of a college, and is a D. D., an LL. D., and a 
Ph. D. He taught what the people wanted to know, and 
that made him successful. 



I 



94 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS. 

Once I went up into the mountain region of New Hamp- 
shire to lecture, and I suffered a great deal from the cold. 
When I came back to Harvard, I said to a friend, who was a 
scientific man, of great culture ; '^ Professor, I am never 
going into New Hampshire to lecture again, never!" 
** Why?" '^ Because I nearly shivered the teeth out of my 
head." **And why did you shiver?" ** Because the 
weather was cold." *'0h, no, no!" said my friend. 
* ' Then it was because I did not have bedclothes enough ! ' ' 
*'No, no, it wasn't that." "Well," I said, ** you are a 
scientific man, and I wish you would tell me, then, just why 
I shivered?" *' Well, sir," he replied, *^it was because you 
didn't know any better." Said he: "Didn't you have in 
your pocket a newspaper?" "Oh, yes." "Well, why 
didn't you spread that over your bed? If you had you 
would have been as warm as the richest man in America, 
under all his silk coverlids ; and you shivered because you 
did not know enough to put the two-cent paper over your 
bed." 

How many women want divorces — and ought to have 
them, too. How many divorces originate something like 
this : A workingman comes in haste to his supper, and sits 
•down to eat potatoes that are about as hard as the rocks 
beside which they grew. He will chop them up and eat 
them in a hurry, and they won't digest well. They make 
him cross. He frets and scolds, and perhaps he swears, he 
scarcely knows why, and then there is trouble. If the good 
woman had only known enough of science to put in a pinch 
of salt, they would have come out mealy and luscious and 
eatable, and ready to laugh themselves to pieces in edible joy, 
and he would have eaten them down in peace and satisfaction 
and with good digestion, and he would have arisen from the 



95 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS. 

table with a smile on his face, and there would have been 
joy in that family; and all because of a pinch of salt. The 
lack in appreciating the value of little things often keeps us^ 
in poverty. 

I want to ask the audience, Who are the great inventors 
of the world ? Many will answer that it is a peculiar race ol 
men, with intellects like lightning flashes and heads like 
bushel measures. But, in fact, inventors are usually ordinary 
practical thinkers. You may invent as much as they, if you. 
study on the question, What does the world need? It is not 
so difficult to prepare a machine, after all, as it is to find out 
just what people want. The Jacquard loom was invented by 
a working woman. So was the printing roller. So was the 
second best cotton gin. So was the mowing machine. I 
am out of all patience with myself because I did not invent 
the telephone. I had the same opportunity that the other 
boy had ; I put my ear down to the rail and heard the 
rumbling of the engine through the miles of track, and arose 
and threw snow-balls — the other boy arose and asked Why? 
He discovered that it was caused by the generation of elec- 
tricity by the wheels, and, when he saw Edison's speaking 
machine, he had the whole matter at a glance. 

There was a congressman once who resolved to talk sense ; 
of course, he was an exception to the general rule. He was 
one day walking through the Treasury department, when a 
clerk said to him that it was a fine day. As he met other 
clerks, they remarked the same thing, and at last our con- 
gressman said: '*Why do you tell me that it is a fine day. 
I know that already. Now, if you could tell me what the 
weather will be to-morrow, it would be of some importance." 
A clerk caught the idea and began to think it over, and 
entered iiito correspondence with the professor at Cincin- 



96 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS. 

natti. That was the origin of our signal service. Soon we 
will know what the weather will be a week ahead. Yes, not 
many years hence, we will decide what weather we will have 
by a popular vote. How simple all these mighty improve- 
ments and inventions seem when we study the simple steps 
of their evolution ! Yet civilized men and women are 
greater to-day than ever before. We often think all great 
men are dead, and the longer they are dead the greater they 
appear to have been. But, in fact, men are greater, and 
women are nobler, than ever before. We are building on 
the foundations of the past, and we must be exceeding small 
if we are not greater than they who laid them. The world 
knows nothing of its greatest men. Some young man may 
say: *'I am going to be great." *'How?" **How?" 
'* By being elected to an office." Shall the man be greater 
than the men who elect him ? Shall the servant be greater 
than his master? That a man is in public office is no evi- 
dence of greatness. Even if you are great when you are in 
office, they will not call you great till after you die. Another 
young man says : ''I am going to be great when there comes 
a war." But success in war is not always an evidence of 
greatness. Historians are apt to credit a successful man with 
more than he really does, and with deeds that were performed 
by subordinates. General Thomas was one of the greatest 
generals of the war, yet an incident in his life illustrates this 
thought. After the battle of Nashville, the soldiers, seeing 
him, cheered the hero, and shouted, ^'Hurrah for the hero 
of Lookout Mountain." This was distasteful to the General, 
and he ordered it to be stopped. Said he : *' Talk about 
the hero of Lookout Mountain ! Why, I was ordered by 
General Grant to keep my troops at the foot of the mountain, 
and the enemy began to drop their shells among us, and I 
ordered my men to retreat, but they would not do it ; and 



97 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS. 

they charged and captured the works against my positive 
orders. Now they talk about the hero of Lookout Mountain I ' ' 

Yet as he was in command of that corps he would naturally 
be credited with the victory of that charge, while the daring 
private or subordinate may never be mentioned in history. 
You can be as great at home and in private life as you can on 
fields of awful carnage. Greatness, in its noblest sense 
knows no social or official rank. 

I can see again a company of soldiers in the last war 
going home to be received by their native town officers. Did 
you ever think you would like to be a king or queen ? Go 
and be received by. your town officers, and you will know 
what it means. I shall never see again so proud a moment as 
that when, at the head of a company of troops, we were 
marching home to be received. I was but a boy in my teens. 
I can hear now distinctly the band playing, and see the peo- 
ple that were waiting. We marched into their town hall and 
were seated in the center. Then I was called to take a po- 
sition on the platform with the town officers. Then came the 
address of welcome. The old gentleman had never made a 
speech before, but he had written this, and walked up and 
down the pasture until he had committed is to memory. But 
he had brought it with him and spread it out on the desk. 
The delivery of the speech by that good but nervous town 
official went something like this : 

Fellow Citizens — fellow citizens. We are — we are — we are 
very happy — we are — we are very happy to welcome back 
to our native town — these soldiers. Fellow citizens, we are 
very happy to welcome back to our native town these sol- 
diers who have — who have — who have fought — who have 
fought and bled — and come back to their native town again. 



98 



■■■■■i 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS. 

We are — we are — we are especially — especially pleased to 
see with us to-day this young hero. This young hero — to 
see this young hero," — in imagination we have seen — (re- 
member that he said ^*in imagination,") we have seen 
him leading his troops on to battle. We have seen his 
— his — his shining sword, flashing in the sunshine, as he 
shouted to his troops, * Come on ! ' " 

Oh, dear, dear ! dear, what did he know about war ? That 
Captain with his shining sword flashing in air, shouting to his 
troops, COME ON ! Henever did it, never. Iftherehadnot 
often been a double line of flesh and blood between him and the 
enemy he would not have been there that day to be received. 
If he had known anything about war he would have known 
what any soldier in this audience can tell you that it was next 
to a crime for an officer of Infantry in time of danger to go 
ahead of his men ! Do you suppose he is going out there to 
be shot in front by the enemy and in the back by his 
own men? That is no place for him. And yet the hero 
ot the reception hour was that boy. There stood in 
that house, unnoticed, men who had carried that boy on 
their backs through deep rivers, men who had given him 
their last draught of coffee ; men who had run miles to get 
him food. And some were not there ; some were sleeping 
their last sleep in their unknown graves. They had given 
their lives for the nation, but were scarcely noticed in the 
good man's speech. And the boy was the hero of the recep- 
tion hour. Why? For no other reason under Heaven but 
because he was an officer and these men were only private 
soldiers. Human nature often estimates men's greatness by 
the office they hold ; yet office cannot make men great, nor 
noble, nor brave. 

Any man may be great, but the best place to be great is at 



99 



ACRES OF DIAMONDS. 

:*ome. They can make their kind better ; they can labor to 
help their neighbors and instruct and improve the minds of 
the men, women and children around them; they can make 
holier their own locality ; they can build up the schools and 
churches around them, and they can make their own homes 
bright and sweet. These are the elements of greatness, It is 
here greatness begins, and if a man is not great in his own 
home or in his own school district he will never be great 
anywhere. 




100 



Enoch Walked With God. 



"And Enoch Walked With God." Genesis, 5: 24. 



In the 5th chapter of Genesis, and 24th verse we have 
the "biography of a man — a wonderfully brief biography — 
included in this statement, "and Enoch walked with God, 
and he was not, for God took him," 

That is probably the briefest biography — to be a compre- 
hensive one — that was ever written. 

At the first thought, when we read that expression, one 
would think that we knew very little about Enoch. But the 
more the expression dwells on your mind, as the different 
sides of it are presented to your view, the more you find we 
do know about Enoch. 

There is one thing sure : He must have been one of the 
best and noblest men that ever lived, or his biography would 
have been longer. The length of biographies is determined, 
as a rule, by the destructive power of the person concerned. 
If a man has been engaged in killing men, in spilling in- 
nocent blood, in robbery, in piracy, in rapine, in the over- 
turning of nations, or in the ruin of churches, and contending 
against God, his biography would be very long. But if he 
did none of these things, it would be very short. In fact 
there is nothing extraordinary about a man who was perfect 



lOI 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD. 

in his walk with God. There is nothing to say, because his 
life is unique ; it is perfectly smooth ; there are no mistakes 
in it ; no sharp corners ; no difficulties. It moves right on, 
with the great creative Spirit of God ; and so smoothly, so 
cleanly does it glide, that it makes no disturbance. It dis- 
pells nothing that is true ; disturbs nothing that is right ; it 
goes on to its eternal goal without hesitation or stop, and the 
world intuitively takes it to be perfectly natural, and looks 
upon it as something about which there is no occasion to 
make any lengthy remark. It is entire Godly, and true, 
and the world pays no unusual attention to it. 

If I were to go through this congregation, and pick out 
the most saintly people in it, I should find they were those 
persons about which there are the fewest remarks made. 
They are unnoticed because their lives are right. If a person 
tells you a lie, and you know it, you tell your neighbor all 
about it, but if they tell you the truth, you will not think to 
mention anything about it to anyone. If a person does you 
an injury, you go and tell the courts about it, and it gets 
into the newspapers, and their biography becomes an ex- 
tended account. But if they have treated you kindly and 
•given you your just dues, nothing whatever is said about it 
in the newspapers or in the neighborhood. 

If a person is accused of some crime and the tongue of 
scandal has heard of it, immediately in every house it is men- 
tioned, in the public places it is whispered, and that person's 
biography is extended by the volume. But if the person has 
lived a pure life, if his word is to be depended upon, and his 
character is past reproach, no one says anything about it. 
And so, I say, when I find even in the Bible so brief a record 
of a man like this, he must have been an excellent man, and 



I03 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD. 

he must have walked with God, "and God must have taken 
hhn." 

This is all the account the Lord hath left us to make up 
his story from; but it is not difficult for anyone with ordin- 
ary judgment, good sense, and imagination, to picture Enoch 
in every period of his life. It is not so difficult as we might 
at first suppose. 

Enoch was once a young man. Although he lived to 
be 365 years of age — as many years as there are days in our 
year — he was once a young man, and he walked with God. 

If, as a young man he walked with God, it is easy enough 
to tell what his history was like. On his lips were no words 
of reproach against his Maker, from his mouth came no 
profanity, nothing obscene or low. 

He walked with God. If he did that his companions 
were godly men. If you had seen them you could have told 
what was his character. He walked with men who loved 
God. Because no man can walk with God and walk with 
ungodly men. I mean, to choose them for friends. And I 
can see Enoch with his companions, men of honor, men of 
truth and sterling integrity ; men that loved the truth, and 
loved to be honorable and holy; men that worshiped God and 
stood true to their word with each other. Men that looked 
on pure womanhood as the highest type of loveliness. They 
were often together ; they walked forth into the fields, or to 
their business, and loved each other; for nothing binds the 
hearts of men together so closely as being united in one 
common bond of godly fellowship. 

It knits men together to be engaged in the same trade, 
or to be engaged in the same business and receiving the 
same profit. It weaves men's affections together to have the 



103 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD. 

same experiences, no matter if they are harsh or hard. Every 
soldier I meet, who gives me the clasp of his hand, or every 
one whom I find out to have been a soldier, is immediately a 
friend to me. I don't know how or why it is, but I do know 
my soul goes out to him and his eye shines into mine as the 
light of one star goes to another. We have passed through 
the same experiences and consequently our souls are drawn 
together. 

When men have read the same books, or followed the 
same profession, they are naturally drawn together, and when 
.they meet socially, they soon find each other congenial. 

When men have committed crimes, their crimes do not 
draw them together. I do also know that when men have 
been aided by others in crime, or when they sin together, 
that it does not bind their souls together. Experience in the 
criminal courts has taught me, again and again that no 
people hate each other so much as they who have together 
walked in the path of crime. 

A man may think he has a true friend, and may go to 
him and say: '^ You and I will commit a robbery," and they 
do it. Will that experience cause them to love each other ? 
No ; either one of them will be, for money, just as ready to 
betray the one who went with him, as he was to go with him 
in the first place. There is no truth in the love of criminals 
or of ungodly men for one another, you know that to be 
true ; and hence, if Enoch walked with God he walked with 
godly men, and his love for them was deep and intense. Oh, 
how sweet the companionship between godly men ! 

I noticed two young men as they met the other day. 
They did not know that I saw them. One had just come in 
from a trip away from home, and in the station they met. 



104 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD, 

They were both members of this church. I saw the young 
man come out of the train, saw him go down to the gate, and 
there he was met by the other. The greeting between them 
at first astonished me, for they were not relatives. But when 
I saw one of them putting his arm around the other's neck, 
and heard the greeting as they walk off together, I then un- 
derstood it. They came from the same church. They had 
ivalked in the same godly way, and although their lives may 
have many faults in them, yet the very fact, that they were 
trying to serve God, in the same church bound them together. 

In the country of Ireland, there is a young man thinking 
of us. Do you suppose that any person from this church, no 
matter who he was, could step in Enniskillen to-night, and 
meet that young man without being greeted with tears, be- 
cause they were members of the same church, who enjoyed 
the same good things together in the House of God. And 
so if I want to picture to myself Enoch, I imagine one who 
had dear friends. They loved him, they would give their 
lives for him, and he for them. And I can see them, arm in 
arm, as they walked to their business, or to the fields, or to 
the house of God, and it requires no great stretch of imagina- 
tion to tell almost what their conversation is, as they talk 
together. 

He walked with God. He may have had some one he 
loved better than men. He was perfectly human. 

He was a lover. We find in the pictures of such a life, 
that he must have been a lover. He walked with God. 
And what kind of a lover was such a man, when, with her 
who was afterwards to be his bride, he was found walking the 
fields or streets ? He walked with God ; his heart was pure, 
and his life was without a stain. Now then, what do yom 



105 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD. 

suppose was ever his relation to her? It was as open and 
frank as the noonday, and his love was like the blessing of 
the sunshine upon her he had chosen. What he said she 
could depend upon, his life lived out every pledge unbroken, 
and his love to her was a love that brought protection and 
joy. Show me a man that walks with God, and I will show 
you one that cares for woman as though he spread his wings 
over her and her children at every opportunity, always pro- 
tecting the innocent, pure, and weak. 

And Enoch walked with God. What a magnificent 
thing for her he had chosen to be his bride ! Womanhood 
never knows a deeper happiness — womanhood never feels a 
higher, more sublime and more divine thrill of joy, than 
when she walks with a man that walks with God — one about 
whom there is no question, one whom she never fears will go 
astray, one who has no bad habits, one whose word she knows 
is as true as the love of his God ; one whose face, whose 
smile, and whose life exhibits noble, pure and holy ambition. 
Show me the woman whatever her life and character, that 
is chosen to be the wife of such a man, and I will show you 
one of the most happy souls in the world. 

We find, also, that, as a man of God he walked in the 
traditions, or writings, of those good men that had gone be- 
fore him. The Jews say that Enoch was the father of books, 
the first writer of books, and the originator of the Hebrew 
alphabet. That is their tradition. Whatever the truth may 
have been about that, Enoch was one of those men who 
would have loved to walk with good books if they had ex- 
isted in this day. He loved all examples of goodness, and all 
records of truth. There is nothing but personal association 
that is sweeter, for one who is walking with God, than to read 



io6 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD. 

the records of others who have done the same thing before him. 
What would he do if he were here now ? He would take this 
Bible, and go through it from beginning to end, and every- 
thing good written of every man he would carefully imitate. 
Books are but the condensed expressions of men's entire 
lives. Men live in their books; their bodies dissolve to 
dust, and their spirits fly away, and the book which they 
leave behind is all there is of them for us. It is a kind of 
consolidated statement of themselves, and he that sits in a 
library with the books around him which he loves, lives with 
all those men of the past, who wrote those books. I want to 
see Peter, and I take down the life of Peter, as it has been 
taken from the Holy Book, and from probable tradition and 
history. And I take that life of Peter, and read what he 
said, and what he did, and I associate with him. He is a 
godly man, and association with him will uplift us, and we 
love to associate with Peter. And so you can call up the past 
worthies, just as the magicians were said to do by waving 
their wands. They come back into your library, and talk 
with you by their books. You can see the Apostles and walk 
with them, and those who have lived through the ages inter- 
vening; and even with the men of yesterday just gone to 
their graves, you can pick up their books and associate with 
them. 

And they that love to walk with God, love to walk with 
godly men, and naturally seek their books; and so I say, if 
books were extant in Enoch's time, he loved those records of 
other godly men, and would have read them, and would have 
been helped by them. 

Enoch walked with God in another sense ; he was a lover 
of nature. Any man that walks with the Almighty God that 



W 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD. 

made this universe, cannot fail to be interested in nature. 
Stand by the sea, — Do its waves say nothing to you? Does 
it not tell you of the time when the voice of God was heard, 
so sweet, and yet so piercing, sounding through the darkness 
of the early fog, saying, "let there be light?" Does it not 
tell you the story of God's protection or God's judgments 
upon the fleets that have crossed it? Does it not tell you of 
the shores so distant, on which that very wave has foamed back 
and forth praising the Maker in all the ages that have gone 
by ? Does it not tell of the distant islands, and continents, 
from which it has come ? Does it not tell you of the wrecks 
that lie under it? And of that future when *^ there shall be 
no more sea?" If it does not — then it is because you are not 
walking in that close relationship with the God of nature, 
which is your privilege and duty and which, Enoch must have 
enjoyed. 

Look at the great mountain range, its peaks that lift their 
heads into the cloud-land; and as you gaze up to it, does it 
not tell you of the time when this world was all a molten mass, 
and when the Almighty God moulded that mass of matter as 
the potter tosses the clay ? Are you not reminded of the time 
when, by God's fiat, the eternal fires, breaking upward 
through this fearful crust, threw up these mountains ? Or 
when the floods did carve out those strange forms and make 
them so wondrous beautiful ? Do they not^ell you of the 
time when water stood above them, and when the Ark moved 
upon the face of the water? Does it not tell you of the time 
when mankind began its life at its foot ? And does it not tell 
you of the wisdom, the infinity, the love and the care of your 
Almighty Father? 

If it has nothing to say to you, it is because you lire 



io8 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD, 

not, and walk not, with the God of nature, whom Enoch 
loved. 

If the leaf, so beautifully colored, so wonderfully shaded 
that the artist is dismayed at the thought of copying it — if the 
smallest Autumn leaf, as it lies upon the ground, tells you no 
story of the falling of human life, and repeats not to you the old, 
old story of life and death, growth and decay and our de- 
pendence on God — if, as it falls to the ground to die, it does * 
not teach you of the resurrection, when all the nutriment of 
that leaf will re-ascend into other leaves at the Summer's re- 
turn — if even the little falling leaf has nothing to say to you, 
it is because you live not, and walk not with the God of 
Enoch. Enoch understood the teachings of nature, he 
'* found sermons in stones, and books in running brooks;" 
for him God was in everything: the mountains, the clouds, 
the waves, the trees, valleys and hills, all had their voices for 
him, and the winds played a magnificent organ built by the 
Supreme Musician. For him the sounds of nature had voices 
like those the angels heard when the morning stars sang to- 
gether. 

The more Enoch understood of God's workings in 
nature, — the more he could tell of the geological formations, — 
the more he kneT7 about botany, the more he knew about the 
earth, and the formations of the earth by the movements of 
nature, the nearer he could get to God, and the closer he 
could walk with Him. So we find in the Book of Enoch, the 
earliest descriptions of nature, to be found inhuman writings, 
far beyond the conceptions of any Modern. That may be 
the reason why the tradition makes him the author. He saw 
glory in the sunshine at the very first glance. He saw beauty 
in the waters that we never feel. In field, in plain, in 



109 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD, 

mountains and in woods he recognized lovely forms which 
we cannot see. 

If he was the first astronomer, he was such because he 
walked with God. As he looked out upon the universe of 
God, and saw those beaming stars, it seems he must have 
known that they were worlds. The traditions of the world, 
in the darkness of ignorance concerning the flatness of the 
sky and earth have all come to mankind since his day. He 
walked with God, and could see what many of us will never 
see, until we, like him, are translated into the Beyond. 

Enoch walked with God ; and it is easy to go to his home. 
It is easy to conjecture what kind of descendants he had, and 
almost to look upon those children that played around his 
home. In the first place, they were healthy children. If all 
the parents have walked with God, and always been temper- 
ate, and truthful, and always loved God, no disease of any 
kind has been handed down to their children, for disease is 
ever the result of sin, either in the generations past or in our 
own. Look at the young Methusaleh, and see the frankness 
of his countenance. For in the truthfulness of character is 
health and long life — more than we sometimes think. Although 
truthful people are often afflicted with diseases, yet it would 
not have been so if their parents had always been truthful, 
temperate and without fault, and so it is easy enough to see 
h(W it was that Methusaleh lived over 900 years, and all those 
years of life and health which followed up that child, came 
from his father's teachings and life. His father and he 
walked with God. 

You can see those children, healthy, ruddy, truthful, 
kind, cheerful, playful, happy. Not the godly children we 
often read about that are always so very good, — in church — 



no 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD. 

always so sweet-on Sundays ; not the perfect children that 
never need a rebuke, not the children that have no mtsch.ev- 
ousness in their nature-bnt happy, active, noisy natural 
uuthful children. It is easy to picture then. Butlhavenot 
time to do it. Their father walked with God. 

And the wife of Enoch's heart and bosom, it is easy to tell 
something concerning her. Certainly it is an immense help 
oTmantohave agood wife. Enoch's lifetime was 365 
years, and he must have had a good wife, or it would have 
Len shorter by far, according to my opinion. And if his 
wife lived with him 300 years, she must have been a godly 
woman. She and her husband walked with God. 

I can see his funeral gathering. God says Enoch -was 
„of' "He was not." What a magni6cent expression ! 
How full of eloquence are the words "he was not. 

My father once came to the boarding school where I first 
attended school with my brother, and while I was in the 
r c tation room, he took my brother home ; and when I came 
out I could see my father's team driving away toward Spring- 
fie d I could recognize the team, but I did not know my 
brother was with him. I went into -^ -7, ^.^"^^ 
how strange it seemed, how gloomy; my father had bee" 
there, an/he was gone. And when they -W ^ -Y b -the 
was gone also, then a double gloom seemed to settle over 
rverv°hTng My father had been there-he sat m that chair. 
He hid been there, talking with my brother, and now they 
Jere gone I shall not forget the feeling of homesickne^ 
That se tied upon my life. I could notstudy or sleep I could 
only c" -because my father and brother had been there, but 
nowmy brother <• was not" -father took him. J-tasmsome 
cold winter night I have looked at the open door of a cottage. 



Ill 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD, 

The wind whistled and drifted the snow about and the clouds, 
were black and deep, and yet I could see the glow of that 
light, gleaming from the windows, lighting up every snow- 
flake, and making beautiful every falling crystal. It seemed 
like the glory of the Heaven beyond, as I could see men 
stepping into its door — and then, the door was closed, and 
then it was dark, yea, darker than it would have been if I had 
not seen the light at all; my eyes were dazed. They were, 
but they are not. They did live, but they have passed in to 
the glorious brightness beyond. I knew them before, but 
now they have passed in, and they are no more now to me ! 

Your mother has died — your mother; and you go into the 
room where she used to sit, and you feel you are going to see 
her. You open the door and wonder if she is going to be in 
that chair. Yonder is the chair, there is the window-curtain, 
the stand, the old Bible ; all there, but she is not — to you, 
she is not — as Enoch was not. 

You have lost a child, and as you are changing your house 
or moving, you come upon some plaything that it used to 
have, and immediately you can see those eyes, that face, the 
dress, shoes, everything; all come up before your mind. As 
you take up this little plaything, broken, dirty and scratched 
and you say ''he is no more, he was, but is not." And so, 
around the wide circle of our departed friends, we think of 
them, first as present, and then they ''are not.' 

I rememember a sad scene I witnessed not long since, 
when after a funeral I went to call upon the family, where there 
were five or six children, and as I sat in the room, the little 
child awoke with a start and put up its hands and shouted* 
"Mama!" And then, looking through the ribs of its crib, 
t^rs streaming down its face, it looked to me and said "didn't 



112 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD. 

I see mama?" ''Why no, child, you were dreaming, your 
mama is not." It could feel its mother's kiss, it could feel 
her breath, and could hear its mother's loving whisper, and 
it awoke — and lo ! its mother was not. She was not there. 
Sie had gone on into the Shining. And so, when Enoch 
died, if his wife was still living, what did she do? She 
found the good man's clothing, and packed it away, feeling 
that '*he was not." She found his books, and laid them 
away, and said, ''I cannot read them now, for he that read 
them is not." He was gone; he had passed through the 
glory into the Beyond, but he was no more, to her, in this 
life. And the children came, and looked on their father's 
grave, if it was there, and said "he is not." Or they looked 
cm the last spot where he had stood, if bodily he was taken 
into Heaven, and said, '*he was here once, but now he is 
not." 

Enoch was a father, a husband, a friend, but now he is not; 
and I can see the funeral procession; many great and lofty 
worthies may have been there to nonor his memory — but in 
that train come the poor, the decrepjid, the sinful, the aban- 
doned — they all come to testify what this man, who walked 
with God, had done for them. For the man who walks with 
God, will help enrich all who come in contact with him, will 
make friends of poor and great, and make happy those in 
health and peace and will shower his blessings alike on every 
man he meets. Think of Enoch, living all those three hun- 
dred years, every day and hour a good deed done for some- 
body, never speaking a word unless it was pure and kind, 
never helping a person unless it wasasincere help, and always 
shining with the presence of God. 

Ah, what beautiful lessons do gleam out of a life like that \ 



"3 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD, 

and what a monument doth it make of beauty, sublimity, and 
honor, when we consider three hundred years of walking with 
God. Ah ! the testimony of such a beautiful existence. 

God finishes the biography by saying that he passed into 
the gloriousBeyond, "and that he was not, * ' and then says * 'God 
took him." Ah, Enoch, thou didst love to study the stars, 
yea, thou didst love to study the magnificent mountain peaks, 
thou didst love to examine the beautiful flower, and thou didst 
love to do good deeds, to aid those in want and distress, to 
protect the pure and innocent. Thou didst love to see the 
magnificent things which God had made, and didst love that 
more magnificent thing, the eternal soul of man. Now, 
Enoch, where art thou ? Who came out to the gate of deatk 
when thou didst enter it, having full confidence in the future ? 
When the darkness and blackness of the earthly side of that 
door were all past, who did meet thee? He with whom thoa 
didst associate here. Because you and the Lord walked 
together here, and loved each other here, you have certainly 
met there. Every man will meet in heaven the characters he 
loved here. This is beyond question; God hath in his kind- 
ness ordained that we shall meet the characters we love here; 
we shall associate with them there; and if we love not godly 
characters and Christ-like natures, and if we love not the 
house or work of God here we shall not love them there. 
Enoch loved God and walked with him here; he did not see 
Him here, but he felt His presence, heard His voice, was 
moved by His spirit, and walked with Him all the way along. 

And when the earthly door closed upon him, lo! there was 
the Holy One in person to welcome him! 

He loved all these grand things here — now what is Enoch 
doing ? Now he walks with God through the fields of heaven 



114 



ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD 

— and not only through those fields, but through these fields 
of earth, Enoch, sent of God, as a messenger of good, comes 
to the poor now, and some distressed mother, to-night, weep- 
ing over her child, or the sins of her husband, has God's 
comfort, it may be, from the hands of Enoch, and she feels a 
wonderful peace. He loved those deeds here and he loves 
them there. 

He loved to know about distant worlds. Now, Enoch, 
you can walk the green fields of the planet Mars, and tell us 
of the people there. You can go to the most distant suns 
and to the wonderful comets. You can now find the centre 
of the universe, and from centre to circumference you can 
examine every beauty and wonder of God's awful universe. 
And now, Enoch, thou art filled with the glory of Heaven. 
Thou didst love magnificence here, now thou hast more than 
human soul can appreciate. Now thou seest the Hand that 
stroked thee here, now thou seest the Divine Eyes that were 
beaming with love upon thee here. Now thou hast the assur- 
ance beyond question of that eternal, never-ending life, of 
which you read here. There, in those eternal fields of joy, 
thou livest forever with Him with whom thou didst live and 
walk here. 



"5 




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